


Passover

by LolaBleu



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Four POV, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-06-19
Packaged: 2018-02-05 07:36:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 25,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1810474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolaBleu/pseuds/LolaBleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was her strength, her liveliness that really made her beautiful. No one else saw that - not yet anyway -, and it made me feel like I was carrying around something precious, a secret knowledge that needed to be guarded jealously. **Divergent from Tobias' POV.**</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to FFN 9-30-12  
> ...
> 
> The tense switches between first person, present in the first chapter and first person, past in the following chapters since when I originally wrote it I only planned on it being a one-shot. That worked out well, huh?  
> ...
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr @ BleuWrites  
> ...

This fight isn't about Tris and Peter, it's about me and Eric. I don't even flinch when I see their names on the board; really it's a foregone conclusion. As much as Eric might look the Dauntless part with a faceful of metal hoops it's just a shell, a disguise, and underneath is still the same innate, ingrained prejudices that make his Erudite thirst for knowledge manifest in cruelty. He's never quite fit in here, just like I never have.

To him this fight is just the shortest route from point A to B because unfortunately he's not blind or stupid, though I might be willing to help him with the former before I leave forever. I know he's seen the same similarities in her that have intrigued me. She's the first Abnegation transfer since myself, and maybe that would be enough, but she's got the same need to prove herself, the same desire to rename and remake herself, that I had.

It's more than the fact that we grew up in the same society, and know how to relate to each other that fuels his curiosity though, and this fight is the simplest way to find out if there's something deeper than superficial commonalities between us. I know he'll ignore the fight to focus on cataloging my every reaction, looking for any hint of attachment, and I'll spend it trying to dispel the nervous knot in my stomach and trying not to cringe too much.

But it's also why this fight is not about Tris and Peter, but Eric and me. He's looking for any weak spot that he can exploit, retribution for having to suffer the indignity of coming in second to a Stiff in our initiation class, and the continued humiliation of everyone knowing that if given a choice, Max would rather have me as his second-in-command than Eric.

And if the girl is something more to me than someone I empathize with all the better. I've seen the manic gleam in his eye as he's watched people having to fight their loved ones, the euphoric joy of watching people watch their friends and family take a beating and being powerless to stop it.

Being on the outside I've always understood the necessity of it - if you're too focused on someone else's well being you'll get yourself killed, and how much help are you going to be if you're dead? -, but being on the inside changes everything, which is something that comes into sharp relief watching Tris struggling over and over again to pull herself up off the floor.

She'll never take the easy way out; her will is too strong to allow feigning unconsciousness, but I can't watch anymore. Her scream chases me down the hallway, and it's not until I'm slumped against the door of my apartment that I notice how heavy my breathing is, the way every muscle in my body is clenched, or the cold sweat chilling my skin.

With my face pressed into my knees her scream plays in my head and it's so much like the ones I used to make every time the belt bit into my skin that it sends me scrambling towards the bathroom to heave into the toilet. At least that makes it easier to rationalize my reaction.

* * *

 

When you're jumping off a building the air always feels more solid than it is, like it's trying to remind you that your body wasn't made for flight, or maybe desperately trying to cushion the inevitable impact.

I've always liked that feeling. I have never liked jumping off buildings. But hanging out the door of a speeding train is a good compromise. No height to make my head spin, but the same feeling of the air fighting against you. It feels good, free. It makes me forget the reason I'm hanging out the door in the first place, which is so I don't have to look at Tris' battered face. At least Marcus never left evidence where everyone could see it.

It shouldn't bother me, but it does. It shouldn't bother me either that it was Al helping her into the train, or Will and Christina defending her against the taunts that met her, but that bothers me too. I'm choosing to ignore that part though.

Still, it doesn't change the fact that I can't look at her face without guilt turning me inside out. Even if the silent reproaches I see there are an invention of my head, they're still present every time I look at her.

I could keep trying to convince myself that the reason I dreamed of being locked in that damn closet last night was because my sheets had twisted around me so tightly as I thrashed in my sleep that I felt trapped. That the reason I dreamed of her screaming in pain on the other side of the door was misplaced guilt at my cowardice.

Just because Eric outranks me doesn't mean I can't disagree with him. I could have gone to Max and made a pretty convincing argument that pairing Peter and Tris wasn't in the best interest of either of their training. Dissent doesn't equal disloyalty even in Dauntless. And even if I hadn't failed her - no them, my initiates I remind myself - I should have at least been able to stay and watch the fight.

It sounds pathetic even in my head, just as it sounded the night before when I tried to convince myself that I was leaving and she was staying and in a few months neither of us would be more than a footnote to the other.

* * *

 

"You like her."

I'm barely even tasting the stew that keeps finding it's way into my mouth, but the nervous voice next to me has better luck breaking into my thoughts than dinner does.

"Tris," Lynn nods at her across the dining hall, "you like her." As I watch a blush creeps up her neck and colors her cheeks, her embarrassment literally written on her face at addressing me so bluntly; she's still just an initiate even if she is Dauntless-born.

Thankfully, Zeke and his brother Uriah are too absorbed in trying to hit each other in the face with their peas - the latter probably trying to impress the girl on his other side - to notice Lynn and me.

"Are you sure you weren't born Candor?" I snap.

As soon as she ducks her face at my harsh reply I regret it. "I understand her," I murmur as an apology, "we grew up having the same values shoved down our throats, and I know what it's like coming here and being looked down on for it."

Across the hall Tris keeps gingerly itching at the top of her shirt, and I wonder if she got a tattoo there. I drop my gaze just in time to not get caught as Zeke, Uriah, and Marlene burst into a raucous fit of laughter, drawing Tris' attention to our table.

I don't miss the look of pain that flashes across Lynn's face when she catches Marlene's eye as she leaves, but I'm never quite sure if her at least she likes you too is something she said or something I imagined.

I spend the rest of dinner surreptitiously glancing at Tris and trying to work out what she could have had inked into her skin, measuring it's size by the way her fingers pick at the fabric covering it. I fleetingly wish that she wasn't Abnegation-born so it would be on display, but the thought is gone as quick as it comes, replaced by gratitude that she is because maybe if I had more time I'd be the only one to see it.

"Thinking about how you're going to win capture the flag again?" Zeke inquires once all the initiates have gone back to the dorms.

"Not really."

"You okay, man? You seem... I don't know.. off lately."

I teeter on the edge of telling him that I'm leaving, he's my friend - has been my friend since initiation -, and I feel guilty for leaving instead of trying to fix the wrongs I see. A strong person wouldn't run away. A true Dauntless wouldn't surrender. But the admission would open up a whole can of worms I'd rather not get into, not least of which is why joining the factionless is looking less and less appealing than it did a few weeks ago.

"I'm fine." I mumble, and even though he clearly doesn't believe me he can't say anything more on the subject once Eric plants himself next to us, his faux bravado doing little to conceal the seething desire to outdo me even in childish games.

~~xxxx~~

_You like her_  Lynn's voice echoes in my head as I follow Tris up rusted remains of the Ferris wheel. Even my terror at the height isn't enough to silence it once we climb up from the platform and I've got her caged in with my body as she points out the other teams flag, pulsating with light in the middle distance.

I'm too lost in the pale expanse of her neck and the sudden desire to kiss it to realize that by now I should be climbing down - hell, I should be climbing out of my skin with my fear of heights -, but her breathless reminder makes the awkwardness worthwhile, and it makes me smile, even if it shouldn't.

And then right in the middle of chastising myself for looking at one of my students that way the world stops. The beam she was supporting herself on literally dropped out from under her feet, and now she's dangling a hundred feet off the ground by only her hands, and it's my worst fears realized.

"Four!" she pleads, and my heart abruptly stops, and then tries to claw it's way up my throat. I have to swallow it back down before I can reply.

"Hold on!" I yell back. "Just hold on. I have an idea." Over the pounding of my heartbeat and the pounding of my hands and feet as I climb my way down faster than I thought possible I can hear her calling out my name above me, but she isn't crying, isn't giving into to the terror that she could very easily be going back to the compound in a body bag, and it helps. It helps too that I don't hear her small body ricocheting over and around and under the metal struts of this abandoned behemoth.

My knees scream with pain as I drop to earth a good ten feet above the ground, but I ignore it, racing to the control panel and praying corrosion or rats haven't eaten away the wires that would make this work. "Come on," I growl as I slap at the buttons, "work. Work."

A massive shudder rocks through it and I pray it doesn't throw her off, but then with a creak and groan it's moving, and she's still holding on. I realize immediately there's a flaw in my brilliant plan; if she doesn't let go at just the right time she'll be drawn between the wheel and the base that supports it, dying in the crunch of bone and rupture of organs no matter how little she is.

But she isn't, she doesn't, and before I can shout a warning she's rolling out of the way as one of the car comes down, the last effort of a machine intent on killing her, or so it seems.

I expect tears when I pull her hands away from her face, but she's laughing. Laughing in hysteria maybe, but laughing nonetheless. I've still got one of her hands trapped between both of mine when she pushes herself up. She's close enough that I can feel her breath washing across me, warm and humid.

"You could have told me that the Ferris wheel still worked. We wouldn't have had to climb up it in the first place." She tried to sound casual, but the slight shake in her voice betrayed her.

"I would have, if I had known. Couldn't just let you hang there, so I took a risk. Come on, time to go get their flag." I remind her because it feels like I should, because it's more appropriate than sliding my fingers into her hair and pressing my lips against hers, like I'm aching to.

It was her actions and her plan that won my team the flag, and I can tell on the train back that somehow or other Eric will find a way to punish me for winning the third year in a row, but my brain is too consumed with envy to give the thought much heed.

She's so happy, pressed in-between Zeke's brother and her other friends, laughing and smiling and for one bright moment being alive and carefree and sixteen. More than anything I wish I was next to her.

I lean out of the train, closing my eyes to the scenery whipping by and imagining what it would have been like if we had been in the same initiate class. We would have been celebrating together, sitting with my arm slung around her and her body pressed against my side. And when she got tired she would have rested her face in the hollow of my shoulder, and it would have been calm, the same calm I felt with her hand in mine.

The beautiful illusion crumbles as we walk through the Pit, her to the dormitories, and me to my apartment, not because I'm two years older, or even because I'm her instructor, but because I'm leaving. _I'm leaving_ , I remind myself sternly,  _and she's staying. Forget about her_.

 


	2. Chapter 2

_Fear God Alone_

I frowned at the words I'd painted on the wall. They were supposed to be a reminder that I was strong now, and maybe I was, but after tossing and turning for hours and chasing sleep that I knew would never come I wasn't feeling that way. In the middle of the night it felt like every choice I'd made to get me to this point had been an act of cowardice.

If I was truly strong I would have stayed in Abnegation, stood up to Marcus and lived my life in full view of his critical, judgemental eyes. If I was strong I would have taken Max up on his offer even if it did mean I had to come in contact occasionally with the father I hated instead of insulating myself away in the Dauntless compound where he couldn't touch me.

Even blowing up at Tris this afternoon... I did it because I was scared. I was angry, but it was the fear propelling it under everything else. Coming here, becoming Dauntless, all of it was just to protect myself from being hurt by the people I cared about. When she'd misread my intentions, I'd had a temper-tantrum and run away. Again.

I threw knives at her head. She couldn't read my mind, she couldn't know my taunting - which was what it sounded like to an outsider -, was really me trying to make her strong. She hadn't done anything wrong, and I'd treated her like she had because I liked her, cared about her however grudgingly, and she could hurt me. I'd lashed out trying to protect myself, and hurt her in the process.

I kicked the covers away in frustration, raking my fingers through my hair as I dug around on the floor for some clothes. It was late enough that I didn't meet anyone on the way to the training room. I let the scent of dust and sweat and metal seep into me, drawing it into every cell with deep breaths, trying to infuse some of the strength I normally felt in this place into myself.

I kept most of the lights off, choosing a punching bag along the side of the room that was cloaked in semi-darkness, punching and kicking at it slowly at first, and building into a steady, quick rhythm.

The decision to stay here had been pathetically easy. So easy it made me wonder if it was just pretense. Maybe staying, no matter how noble the reason, was just another way to protect myself. I thought joining the factionless would be my final chance at salvation; finally a way to just be. Not Tobias, the rebellious, traitorous son of Marcus. Not Four, the nearly model Dauntless who's secretly Divergent. Just a nameless, faceless, nobody without a past or future.

And then my mother had miraculously risen from the grave. When she tried to embrace me like she hadn't abandoned me, dead or not, I backed away and in a spiteful way it had pleased me seeing the look of hurt on her face. She didn't deserve my forgiveness; she had left me at the mercy of Marcus like he wasn't a monster, like she didn't know what he was like.

It would have been better if she was dead. Knowing she left - left me behind - despite what she knew about him hurt worse. It didn't matter that she thought she was being righteous by rallying the factionless, or happy by being with her lover. It just made me hate her more because now I wouldn't even have refuge there; I couldn't escape the curse of the Eaton name.

I leaned my head against the punching bag, trying to catch my breath. Staying meant I could avoid all that. Staying meant Tris. But what if I couldn't have her?

After my childish fit of petulance I had moped to myself that I'd ruined everything. The truth was I didn't know if I had or not. If she didn't forgive me I could still stay, still keep her safe from afar, but the wrenching feeling in the proximity of my heart was enough to tell me that wasn't what I really wanted. No, what I wanted was her. All of her.

I pushed myself away, peeling off my sweat soaked shirt in the process, before attacking the punching bag again.

I weeks of time where Tris had to see me every day, or nearly so. I couldn't bend the rules for her - as much as everyone else would hate me for showing favoritism, she'd hate me more even -, but that didn't mean I couldn't talk to her, that I had to be her instructor every second of the day. I could talk to her, get to know her a little like Amar had done with me when I was an initiate.

But I didn't know if that would be enough. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I'd never liked someone before, not like this. I wasn't even sure she liked me too, even before I threw knives at her.

And I didn't know if I could trust her. That was holding me back more than the fact that I was her instructor, that I was older than her, everything I may or may not have done to ruin things before they had a chance to flourish and grow into something. Just because Marcus hadn't left any visible scars didn't mean they weren't there. Letting her in meant giving her the power to crush me, and everything inside of me rebelled at the thought of that. I couldn't show her who I really was, not yet anyway, not until I was sure of her.

By the time I left the training room my hands and bare feet were red raw, chaffed and stinging from the abuse I'd inflicted on them. I watched soap slide over my knuckles under the scalding water of my shower. They were the same hands I'd touched Tris with, and I remembered the way she flinched away from them when we were at the fence.

Maybe she really did think I was like Eric. Just the thought that she could look at me with the same disgust and contempt she viewed him with made it feel like something was breaking inside me, made disappointment crash through me because in all these years she was the first person I'd wanted to touch.

"You look wrecked," was all Shauna said as I sat down next to her, hunching over a cup of coffee. "Have you slept at all?"

"Not really." I said gruffly as Zeke joined us.

Most mornings it didn't bother me, watching this little game they were playing, dancing around the fact that they liked each other. This morning it was just grating because the only thing standing in the way of them getting together was pointless nervousness and uncertainty.

I tried to slip away unnoticed once they were deeply involved in their conversation, but Shauna's hand stayed me. "Why don't you come by tonight, you too Zeke," her eyes flicked hopefully to his for a moment before landing back on me.

"Thanks, but I think I'm going to crash once I finish up today."

"Tomorrow then; I know you'll be free of your grommets for a few days after today."

"Yeah, okay." I said without much enthusiasm, but she knew once I said I'd go I would, because there was some part of me that was still the polite Abnegation boy, always projecting outward and putting other peoples needs before my own.

By the time I made it back to the training room Eric had scribbled the names on the boards for the today's fights, Tris paired against Molly among them. I knew as soon as Tris walked in that something had happened. Her muscles were bunched and tight, her fingers flexing absently as she watched the other fights. Anger poured off her the same way it did a caged and dangerous animal.

I didn't know what was going to happen when she squared off against Molly in the center of the ring, but I knew it wasn't going to be good. I felt a surge of pride as she ducked and dodged, missing a few shots here and there, but working out the larger girls weaknesses as she attacked.

I loved seeing her like this, eyes wide and awake, strong in spite of her size, and I had to repress a smile as Molly landed on the floor with a crash that sent vibrations through it.

And then I was peeling myself away from the wall, my instincts rather than coherent thought spurring me into action from recognizing the way Tris' eyes changed from awake to feral in an instant as she kicked at Molly viciously.

I didn't know what had finally snapped inside her, what dark place it took her to, but I knew if I didn't stop her she'd kill Molly. I hooked my arms into hers, pulling her away just like Amar had pulled me off Eric during our last fight.

"You won. Stop." I muttered into Tris' ear, eyes trained on Molly as she bled onto the rough wood floor. It was enough at least to bring her back to the present, and I felt her still in my arms. "I think you should leave, take a walk." I suggested because despite her seeming calm I wasn't sure how long it would last.

"I'm fine." She took a deep breath. "I'm fine now."

 _No Tris_ , I thought,  _you're not_.

* * *

 

_Stupid._

_Stupid, stupid, stupid_ , the voice in my head chanted.

But it wasn't enough to stop me wandering among the initiates and their families, looking for the familiar Abnegation grey on visiting day. It didn't help either than once Shauna and Zeke had wheedled out of me that I liked Tris they'd both - loudly and obnoxiously - urged me to pursue her.

This was a risk though. And stupid. Even if Tris didn't recognize me her parents definitely could, and I knew they'd point me out as Marcus' aberrant son. Tobias, the traitor. Tobias, the liar. They could ruin everything. But I couldn't stomach the idea of her wandering around and not meeting a familiar, friendly face. I knew it would hurt her if they didn't come, and maybe I was a pitiful consolation prize, but it was something I could do at least.

I should have turned on my heel and disappeared as soon as I spotted the diminutive woman who could only be Tris' mother hanging on the fringe of the crowd, but I didn't. I stupidly took up a post as casually as I could, far enough away that she wouldn't approach me, but not so far as to miss a single word of their conversation.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as her mother embraced her lovingly, apologizing for her father's absence, and explaining why she couldn't visit her brother who had transferred to Erudite. It made me wonder if they had a reason to run away like I did, instead of just not being suited to the faction they were born into.

The only thing that snapped me out of my ruminations was hearing Tris' mother croon to her that I was handsome when she pointed me out. I forced my eyes to remain looking straight ahead, willed my expression to remain passive, but my heart broke into an erratic sprint as I waited for Tris to say something, but all I heard is her mothers tinkling laugh.

Before I could stop myself I was peering over at them needing to know why Tris hadn't said anything, why her mother had laughed after that comment. But I did it at exactly the wrong time, catching their eyes, and before I could walk away her mother was extending her hand to me and introducing herself.

I knew immediately that she recognized me, but that wasn't why my palms sweating. It was that I liked Tris, and I didn't want her mother to think badly of me. I want her to know Tris was safe with me. I wanted her to trust me with the daughter she so obviously loved.

Still, I couldn't stop myself from snapping at the woman when she gently prodded me about my real name. I wasn't ready yet for Tris to know who I really was. I wasn't ready for her connect me to the poisonous articles the Erudite released after I transfered. I wanted her to like me as much as I liked her before she found that out because I was terrified once she knew the truth she wouldn't want me.

Her mother seemed to take the hint and let the subject drop and I made my exit before the conversation got any more awkward.

~~xxxx~~

Eric was waiting for me when I came out of my fear landscape, leaning nonchalantly against the wall and picking at his nails.

"You know I've never seen you socialize with the initiates before, but I guess you and Tris have a lot in common, being divergent and all." He watched my face narrowly, looking for any reaction to his accusation, and only continuing after I didn't rise to it. "So do you think you made a good impression on your little girlfriends filthy Abnegation mother?"

"What do you want?"

His eyes snapped to my face, hard and angry, insulted by the brittle tone of my voice. "Careful, Tobias, or I might spill the beans on who you really are to her. I noticed you weren't very forthcoming about that today."

"You always were a sneak."

He shrugged. "Comes in handy," he said lightly, "and to answer your question, yes, I do have a reason for being here. Two of your initiates dropped out."

"Why?"

"Well, Edward got stabbed in the eye with a butter knife - very gruesome -, and his girlfriend didn't see the point hanging around without him." He pushed himself away from the wall and disappeared down the stairs.

* * *

 

"You didn't tell me your girl was so fearless." Shauna said as she sat down across from me, looking windswept and euphoric from her trip to the Hancock building.

"What are you talking about? And she's not 'my girl'." I grumbled, trying to ignore the embarrassment heating my face.

"Uriah brought her along with us today; she loved it."

"Why?" It came out harsher than I'd intended and Shauna froze, her hand hovering in mid-air as she reached for a hamburger.

"He was trying to cheer her up," she said carefully, "after what she saw last night. She asked about you."

"What did she say?"

"I said you'd mentioned her to me, and she wanted to know what you said. Don't worry," she said dismissively, waving off my look of horror now that my moment of jealousy had passed, "I didn't tell her anything. Just that you said she was a Stiff. She likes you though."

"You can tell from that, that she likes me?"

"No, from the way she looked like someone canceled Christmas when I said you weren't coming with us."

"Yeah?" I couldn't stop the smile twisting up my lips.

"Ugh... are you two talking about his girlfriend?" Zeke asked as he sat down next to me.

"What gave it away? Was it the big goofy grin on his face?" Shauna quipped.

"I'm glad you two are enjoying this."

"Can't you just let me enjoy a little vicarious young love, Four? Take pity on me; I'm single."

"Zeke would you please marry this girl before she gets too meddlesome?" I said sarcastically.

"Touchy, touchy." He said around a mouthful of food, his cheeks a brilliant, flaming red.

"I'm not being meddlesome am I?" Shauna asked, her brow furrowed in worry.

"We just want you to be happy, man. There are worse things in the world than your friends not liking your girl." He punched me lightly in the shoulder before turning his attention back to Shauna. "Just ignore him. He's being so surly because he won't hook up with her for a few more weeks, which I still think is stupid."

"I don't want people thinking her ranking is because I like her. She's already taking shit for beating the crap out of Molly."

We turned in unison, looking across the hall to where Molly was seating with her friends, still black and blue and obviously sore, all of us stiffening as Eric stopped on his way out to whisper something in her ear. She nodded slightly, and got up to follow him.

"What's that about?" Zeke muttered.

"No idea, but I doubt it's anything good."


	3. Chapter 3

I woke to the sticky pull of my boxers and the fleeting phantom pressure of Tris' thighs bookending my hips. As dreams went it was pretty Goddamn great. Definitely better than dreaming I was locked in a closet or being tortured by Marcus, and I let the memory of it push aside the throbbing of my hangover headache for a while.

_You look good, Tris._

She really had. Despite the article that insinuated her father beat her at best, and molested her at worst, she had looked good; strong and beautiful. I doubted anyone had ever paid her a compliment in Abnegation. For one thing it wasn't polite - complimenting someone would make others feel inferior -, but for another the things that made her beautiful weren't on display in our old faction.

It was more than the makeup and clothes - which I had a sneaking suspicion were Christina's doing -, though there was that too. It was her strength, her liveliness that really made her beautiful. No one else saw that - not yet anyway -, and it made me feel like I was carrying around something precious, a secret knowledge that needed to be guarded jealously. Even Al didn't see it; he liked Tris because he mistook her physical weakness for actual weakness.

I had made the same mistake. I thought joining Dauntless, learning how to fight and throw knives and shoot guns would make me strong. Bones could be broken easily, but if someone couldn't break your will, they couldn't break you, and that was ultimately what they wanted. Once The Sledgehammer figured that out he would realize just how much stronger Tris was then him, and his infatuation would fizzle and die.

I twisted around in bed, my spine popping like a row of firecrackers as I did so, and gobbled down some aspirin and drained a bottle of water. I knew I'd have to get in the shower soon, but I flopped back against my pillows, quickly running over what I remembered of the night before.

Drinking, the Chasm, Tris - that was all easy enough to recall. I probably shouldn't have told her I wished she could hang out with me or that she looked good with Will so close, but I couldn't change that now. And really, if I thought about it, I didn't want to. I wanted her to see me, not the intimidating image I had to project to keep the initiates in line; I wanted her to see more than Four, the persona I hid behind.

And for a moment I was sure she did. For a moment we were just a boy and girl who liked each other, and I couldn't regret that.

~~xxxx~~

Logically I knew the article about Tris' dad was bullshit. A complete fabrication engineered by someone in Erudite, put into motion by Eric, and executed by a bitter initiate. I knew that.

It still didn't stop my stomach knotting in fear and rolling with nausea as the initiates trickled through the simulation room one by one because the articles about Marcus hadn't been a fabrication, and if they could be true was it so far fetched that there might at least have been a kernel of truth to the story about Tris' father? After all her brother had left Abnegation too. Maybe like me they had something to run from. As Tris' turn in the metal chair drew closer and closer I felt my confidence about the validity of the article slip further and further from my grasp.

 _Please, just let it be more crows_. I pleaded in my head as I injected her.  _Anything other than her father abusing her. Anything_.

When the simulation put her into a tank filling with water I breathed a sigh of relief, finally letting myself completely believe that the article was just more Erudite lies. I watched passively as she struggled to free herself from the simulation, the instructor inside of me criticizing and encouraging in turn even though she couldn't hear me.

Her biggest fear seemed to be losing control. It wasn't uncommon, many of the initiates had the same fear, even if it presented in different ways.

 _No, not that way, Tris; you can't break it,_  I chastised as she started banging on the glass again.

And then the glass cracked.

And broke.

Tris sat up sharply, gulping down air as if she had actually been drowning. I stared at her, dumbfounded.

"What?"

"How did you do that?" I asked, shock and disbelief coloring my voice. Divergent or not I'd never seen anyone manipulate a simulation that way, even me. I couldn't count how many times I'd tried to break myself free of the closet in my fear landscape. And it never worked. Never.

"Do what?"

"Crack the glass."

"I don't know." She said as she ignored the hand I had extended to her, standing before me perfectly calmly, like she hadn't just done something impossible.

For a moment as I looked into her pale blue eyes my mind brought forth the image of her dead, her body broken next to the train tracks just like Amar's. I imagined all the light in her extinguished, and grabbed her by the elbow, dragging her out into the hall, stopping only when she ripped her arm from my grip.

"What?"

"You're Divergent." The accusation in my voice unmistakable.

I saw fear flash across her features, but it was gone as quickly as it came. "What's that?" She asked innocently.

"Don't play stupid. I suspected it last time, but this time it's obvious. You manipulated the simulation; you're Divergent. I'll delete the footage, but unless you want to wind up dead at the bottom of the chasm, you'll figure out how to hide it during the simulations! Now, if you'll excuse me." I snapped before stalking back down the hall, my anger finally getting the better of me.

I hated that she tried to lie to me; hated that for someone so smart she didn't have the common sense to protect herself; but most of all hated that she could be killed for being what she was, that she could be taken away from me.

I slammed the door shut, leaning against it as I lifted my eyes heavenward. "That's not what I meant by 'anything', asshole."

* * *

 

The stench of the marsh hung heavy and cloying in the air, oppressive under the dense bank of clouds threatening to smother the city. I let my feet carry me down the sidewalk, head down, hood up. It would be enough to hide my face, but if the Erudite ran the video through a biometics program it wouldn't be enough to hide my identity. Not that there were many cameras a mile south of their headquarters.

I didn't even know why I was here, why I was doing this, other than that I craved the solitude it provided. And maybe I hoped putting some physical distance between Tris and I would let me put some emotional distance between us too so I could more easily sort out the thoughts that had taken up residence in my head and refused to be dislodged.

I didn't stop moving until I was ten stories up, perched in a building that had been abandoned longer than I'd been alive. The height didn't bother me so long as I was inside and well away from the window. It was peaceful here, moonlight flooding through the arch of glass opposite me, and as I slid down the wall to sit in the dust blanketing the floor I tried to take a piece of that calm inside of me.

The future with Tris I'd allowed my imagination to spin over the last week seemed so fragile now, so precarious. And it wasn't until the moment that I realized how easily it could all be ripped away from that I understood how much I wanted it. How much just the thought of losing it, of losing her, hurt me.

People would say it was just Dauntless carelessness if Tris died in a hundred different ways because it was dangerous in this faction, Divergent or not. She could so easily end up dead at the bottom of the Chasm, her death chalked up to suicide like so many other initiates who couldn't handle the rigors of joining Dauntless. No one would look any more closely at her death than they had at any of the others.

Twenty-four hours ago all I wanted was for her to know me. No one really did, not in Dauntless, and not in Abnegation either if I was honest about it. They knew Four, they knew Marcus' son, but they didn't know Tobias. They knew the bits and pieces I meted out, but not me. I wanted to hear her to know my secrets and carry them around the way I carried around the secret of her beauty, protectively.

Now that was crumbling to dust because she wouldn't hide her Divergence. Now I felt myself recoiling from thoughts of her and future, pulling back inside myself and shutting everyone out; I felt myself sinking back into the life that I had before Tris had literally fallen into it. And I hated it. I didn't want to be that person anymore. I didn't want that life.

I raked my hands through my hair, gripping the back of my neck and forcing out the thoughts of her, the memories of the calm I felt with her hand in mine, the warmth I felt every time I touched her.

All that remained was the absolute certainty that I couldn't stay and watch her die. If she manipulated the simulation tomorrow I would be gone by the end of the day. I wouldn't love another woman who was fated to die on me, no matter how fraudulent it had been the first time.

I wanted Tris, but I was never going to hurt like that again. That was my line in the sand. And if she wouldn't hide her Divergence it was better to walk away now than before it hurt any more than it already did.

* * *

 

I left Abnegation with the clothes on my back. I wouldn't be leaving Dauntless with much more.

I leaned against my pillows, legs stretched out on the bed in front of me, looking around the small space that was my own. There was a dresser and mirror, a bed and nightstand, a small refrigerator, and not much more. In the two years I'd been here the most I'd ever done to personalize the space was paint the words Fear God Alone on the wall, and that would be easy enough to cover up with another coat of paint.

There were no stacks of books, no knick-knacks littering the flat top of the dresser, no pictures. At the end of the day, if I was gone, it wouldn't be easy to erase my presence. It would be quicker than I'd fade from people's memories, but not by much.

My eyes kept being drawn to the black backpack at the foot of my bed. It didn't contain much more than my room had. A few changes of clothes, some things that would probably be useful when I was factionless like a pocketknife, but if you looked at them there was nothing to say these things are Four's. They could have belonged to anybody. And as the minutes turned into hours and sleep wouldn't come the transience of my life came into sharp relief.

I knew for years I would leave Abnegation. I knew for months I would leave Dauntless. And it had never bothered me until this moment because where was I going to run to next? Outside the fence? What was going to happen when my mother wouldn't let me live in peace among her people? What was going to happen the next time I cared about someone? There was nowhere left to run after this.

My annoyance at it flared, burst, and smoldered. By the time I rose mechanically and went to breakfast it was gone. I forced down a hearty meal because who knew when I'd get to eat again. I didn't even allow myself to think of staying, to imagine a scenario where Tris took my advice - such as it was -, and by doing so enabled things to return to the way they had been when we'd talked at the Chasm. I couldn't bear the hope of it, couldn't bear having that hope crushed if she didn't.

I was only going through the emotions with the initiates. My mind was totally blank as I injected them, watched them work their way through their simulations. Other than calling their names I didn't say anything to them, and they didn't say anything to me.

I tried to hold on to that dispassion when Tris entered, and when I wasn't able to I allowed my face to harden into a mask, eyes narrowed and lips thin as I pressed them together because it was better than the alternative. I tried to ignore the way she stiffened when I touched her, the way she refused to look at me directly, her eyes as hard as mine.

Tris' hallucination was different today, Peter tied her to a pyre which he lit on fire, but at least her solution wasn't a Divergent one. When she was free of it, she sat up, gave me one contemptuous look and marched out the door without a backwards glance, never saying a word, but saying more with her eyes than words could have conveyed.

Exhaustion descended on me as Peter, Drew, and Uriah went under the serum, and it was all I could do to drag myself back to my apartment and flop onto my bed, face first. I pulled the pillow against me like I'd imagine holding Tris, and for the first time in two years I cried, just like the night I'd moved in here and realized I'd never have to see Marcus again.

It was quiet Abnegation crying, never drawing attention to itself, just silent tears of relief sliding down my face and soaking the pillow bunched under me until sleep finally overcame me.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Thoughts about Tris were like a constant white noise in my head. No matter what I was doing they were always there, and if I didn't have something in front of me demanding my attention they took over. I ended up spending a lot of time alone because I couldn't control the way my face reflected what I was thinking about; smiles and scowls and lip chewing that would have invited questions I would rather not answer.

I thought of all the ways we could hide being together because while patience was a virtue, it was never one I'd possessed in abundance. It was excruciating, having to see her and keep up the facade of being her impassive instructor as the days ticked by when all I wanted to do was touch her and kiss her and talk to her; when all I wanted to do was get us back to that place we'd sometimes inhabited, of just being a boy and a girl who liked each other.

I wanted to revel in the way she made me feel nervous and excited and alive; the way she made me feel like I really was eighteen instead of some old man bent double and broken under the sorrow of decades resting heavy on my shoulders. I even liked how her presence was enough to throw me off balance, how it made me say and do things without thinking, even if I did cringe over them later.

I knew I couldn't avoid telling her the truth about me - who I was, where I came from - forever, but I didn't know how to even begin that conversation because the one thing no one ever tells you about falling in love is how selfish it makes you; the lengths a person will go to, to keep feeling the way I did around her.

I still wanted her to know me, but there was a part of me - a part that I didn't want to acknowledge - that felt the only love I was deserving of was the kind that expressed in the sting of a leather belt. There was a part of me that felt that if I had been lovable I wouldn't have had parents who beat and abandoned me. And it was that part that kept me from telling her everything because then she'd see how unlovable I was, and she'd be gone. Permanently.

Before either of us got any deeper into this I needed her to know who I was, who I really was, and I needed her to believe me. The only way I knew how to accomplish that - to prove to her that the 'lies' her parents had probably been decrying were the truth - was so deeply unappealing I could barely bring myself to think about it.

* * *

It took the simulation almost a week to push her past the more arbitrary fears that opened Tris up, that drug her through the fire and showed her just how strong she was when she emerged from the other side. Today was different. Today she had to kill her family for the second day in a row, and it wasn't a fear that was waking her up; this one was shutting her down.

The silence was deafening, melancholy when she finally pulled herself out the hallucination, and I knew the image of her family, bloody and crumpled like rag dolls at her feet, was burned into the backs of her eyelids. I wanted to say something reassuring, but I knew her day wasn't going to get any better, and no empty platitudes were going to fix that.

I watched quietly as she sat with her head in her hands, taking deep breathes like she's trying to fight off tears. Her eyes were pained when she finally looked at me. "I know the simulation isn't real."

"You don't have to explain it to me. You love your family. You don't want to shoot them. Not the most unreasonable thing in the world."

"In the simulation is the only time I get to see them. I miss them. You ever just... miss your family?"

I let the silence stretched between us before she pushed herself up towards the door. I debated lying to her, or not answering the question at all, but it was an innocent question, and in the grand scheme of things would help me more than hurt me.

"No, I don't. But that's unusual." I answered honestly, laying the first stone that would someday pave the way for me telling her the whole truth about me and my family and why I was Dauntless instead of Abnegation.

I could see the questions in her eyes when she stopped with a hand on the doorknob, but she didn't say anything.

Slowly, the curiosity was replaced by something else, something tender and intimate. And just as slowly it filled me with the same sense of calm that I felt with her hand in mine at the bottom of the Ferris wheel; the same calm I'd been chasing every time I've touched her since. I could feel the walls breaking down, all the things I wrapped around myself to protect me shattering under her gaze.

~~xxxx~~

I was unsurprised to find that Tris wasn't in the cafeteria for lunch. If her initiation was anything like mine - and judging from her absence it was - she was met by varying degrees of jealousy, hostility, and outright hate when she made it back to the dorm to find that she was ranked first among the transfers.

Predictably Peter, Molly, and Drew were hunched over the table they were eating at, plotting. I wasn't surprised by that either. It was a rueful thought that if Peter was Divergent it would have served him better; if he had a little Erudite cunning to temper his Dauntless brutality he might have been truly dangerous. All he was now was a thug emboldened by disposing of Edward without facing any consequences.

"Hey," Shauna greeted me as she and Zeke sat down. I barely noticed her, too engrossed in trying to figure out whatever it was Al, Christina, and Will were saying that left Uriah clenching his teeth.

"Hey!" Shauna said again, punctuating it by slapping her hand on the table in front of me and forcing my eyes to meet her. "I'm going to get another tattoo. Why don't you tag along?"

I huffed in irritation. I was planning on going to the hidden spot at the bottom of the Chasm to have some solitude so that I could live with the Tris in my head for a little while since I still couldn't be with the Tris that walked Dauntless' halls.

"Don't give me that," Shauna said good-naturedly as she grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet, "you've been one morose bastard lately, and I'm not going to let you mope around for another day."

"You're kinda disappointing you know that?" She said once we gained the hallway. "I thought watching you woo your girl would be more interesting, but mostly it's just boring."

"He's Abnegation, he can't help it," Zeke smirked. "It's all pointed glances, and hidden smiles until they get married, and then maybe after that a little hand holding."

I barked out a laugh. "You're one to talk."

We were just walking past the training rooms when we heard laughter and voices behind the door. It should have been empty, so I slipped into 'intimidating' instructor mode and opened the door, prepared to chew out whoever was screwing around in there only to find Tris, Uriah, Lynn, and Marlene goofing off.

"I thought I heard someone in here," I said, my mood slipping from annoyed to bemused. Just like Zeke and Shauna had adopted me when I was shunned by the transfers, so too had Uriah and his friends accepted Tris.

"Turns out it's my idiot brother." Zeke quipped. "You're not supposed to be in here after hours. Careful, or Four will tell Eric, and then you'll be as good as scalped."

I stood to the side as they filed past me, out the door. My fingers twitched in an anticipation as Tris drew closer, my mind working feverishly to come up with something to say to her that might take away the sting of rejection I knew she was feeling despite her camaraderie with Uriah and his friends.

Lynn eyed me suspiciously. "You wouldn't tell Eric." I couldn't help wondering if it was a thinly veiled threat. That if I planned on ratting her out she'd tell everyone what I had stupidly told her about growing up like Tris had. I couldn't think about it without berating myself at the thoughtlessness of it.

"No, I wouldn't." I said flatly.

As Tris filed out I pressed a hand between her shoulders, hyper-aware of the way my hand spanned the gap between her narrow shoulders, the way she shivered slightly under it. "Wait a second."

She turned, looking up at me with those pale blue eyes, looking right through me as she had in the simulation room earlier.

I let my hand drop. "You belong here, you know that? It'll be over soon, so just hold on, okay?" I said nervously, feeling the familiar thrill roll through me that I always felt when I said something real to her; when I let myself be honest and vulnerable with her.

She didn't say anything, just kept looking up at me, the small movements of her eyes flicking between both of mine belying the nervous under the cool facade. She was still looking at me when I felt her hand - soft and warm - slip into mine. Our fingers laced together like it was the most natural thing in the world, like we'd we'd done it a hundred times instead of just this once.

I couldn't keep the beatific smile off my face despite the sense of loss when she finally pulled her hand away and ran off down the hall. For the first time she touched me, and whatever niggling doubts I might have had were obliterated with that small gesture.

* * *

 

Harrison's eyes never waved from the screen he was looking at as I slipped into the Dauntless control room. "What are you doing here?"

He was never a man of many words, preferring to spend his time cloistered away here, eyes bloodshot from looking at lines of code scrolling across the screen, skin pale from the lack of sunlight.

"Thought I'd keep an eye on the surveillance cameras for a while; make sure I don't lose another initiate to a butter knife in the eye." I said as I settled into a spare chair. Peter was brutal, but he wasn't cunning. I had no doubt he'd try to eliminate Tris by the time the sun came up.

"Good idea." He muttered as his fingers flew across the keyboard, his tapping a constant soundtrack as I watched and waited.

I toyed with the idea of seeing if I could hack into Max's files again, see if the Erudite had sent him anymore orders, but committing an act of treason in front of witnesses wasn't the smartest idea I'd ever had.

It was an hour after the lights went out in the dorms and the night vision in the cameras automatically kicked on that I saw Tris get up and walk out. I flipped between camera's keeping her in view as she made her way to the water fountain.

But she didn't stop. She kept walking. "What are you doing, Tris?" I said to myself as she slipped out of the view of the camera, walking towards the Pit. A minute later Peter, Drew, and Al crept along the hall after her, and I was out of the chair like a shot.

The scene that met me when I made it to the Chasm didn't make me fearful, it made me furious, and when Drew stupidly put himself between me and Peter as he held Tris over the railing, I didn't think about it. He got in one good hit, but all it did was make me smile red and wet as I laid into him.

And I didn't stop when he screamed. Or when he tried to curl in on himself protectively, or even when he looked at me with the same fearful look I used to give Marcus when I was kid and I knew I was in for a beating.

And I felt like God, raining down fire and destroying worlds, wiping whole civilizations off the map. In my mind I was screaming at him with hurricane fury, unstoppable.

But I did stop, finally, when I heard Tris croak out my name, her grasp on consciousness as tenuous as the grasp she had on the mist slicked railing as she dangled over the Chasm. I didn't spare Drew a second glance as I pushed myself up from where I was straddling him on the Pit floor and lifted her into my arms, and she finally gave up the fight to keep her eyes open.

She was still passed out as I kicked open the door of my apartment and laid her gently on my bed, and quickly checked her over for any serious injuries. I wanted to stay with her until she woke up, but I needed to get back to Drew before he got any ideas about what happened tonight.

He was still moaning on the floor when I walked up and nudged him in the shoulder. "Get up, asshole." He pushed himself up slowly, and I grabbed him by the elbow impatiently. "I don't have all night," I snapped as I pulled him the rest of the way to his feet.

I had to keep him upright as he stumbled his way to the infirmary, but it did at least give me the chance to make sure that he understood what would happen if he told anyone anything other than the truth: that I had simply happened upon him on my way back from the control room and helped him to the infirmary.

Tris was still out when I got back. I crouched down next to the bed, brushing my fingers across the bruise forming on her cheek and only then realizing my hands were caked in dried blood; it wasn't all Drew's I realized as I washed it off - my knuckles had split open.

I was careful to avoid looking in the mirror over the sink, scared that if I did I would see Marcus staring back at me. Not because I was ashamed of what I'd done, but because I could have easily killed Drew and the only regret I had was that I hadn't been able to inflict the same on Al and Peter.

I caught Tris' eye as I pulled an ice pack out of the fridge.

"Your hands." She croaked, her voice as much evidence that she'd been choked as the bruises around her neck shaped like Peter's hand.

"My hands are none of your concern." She nearly died and her first reaction was an Abnegation one; always projecting outward and never worrying about herself.

I leaned over, putting the ice back behind her head, but before I could pull away she reached out, her hand hovering in mid-air for a moment before gently tracing the split in my lip where Drew hit me. "Tris, I'm all right." I mumbled against her fingers.

"Why were you there?"

"I was coming back from the control room. I heard you scream."

It was a literal truth and a literal lie at the same time. I would tell her one day, tell her everything, but not tonight. Tonight she didn't need me telling her that I was falling for her. She didn't need me to tell her who I was and where I came from. In this day that had she had to kill her family, be betrayed by her friends, and almost lose her life, she didn't need the weight of my baggage on her shoulders too.

"What did you do to them?"

"I deposited Drew at the infirmary a half hour ago. Peter and Al ran. Drew claimed they were just trying to scare you. At least I think that's what he was trying to say." I added.

"He's in bad shape?"

"He'll live." My voice was so cold it didn't sound much like my own, but Tris still squeezed my arm affectionately. "In what condition, I can't say."

"Good." Her voice was tight, but fierce. I watched silently as something like pleasure crossed her face, careful to keep the pity out of my eyes. I hated it when people looked at me like that, and I knew she'd hate it just as much.

I reached out, gently cradling her face in my hand, thumb brushing over her bruised cheek. "I could report this."

"No. I don't want them to think I'm scared."

"I figured you would say that,"  _which is why I brought you here_ , I added silently.

"You think it would be a bad idea if I sat up?"

"I"ll help you."

I held her steady as she lifted herself up, a groan bleeding out between her lips.

"You can let yourself be in pain. It's just me here."

I let her breathing steady before I spoke again.

"I suggest you rely on your transfer friends to protect you from now on."

I couldn't follow her around like a guard dog morning, noon, and night. The best chance she'd have at staying safe was to mend fences and rely on Will and Christina.

"I thought I was," she choked out, "but Al..."

"He wanted you to be the small, quiet girl from Abnegation. He hurt you because your strength makes him feel weak. No other reason."

She nodded vaguely, but I knew she didn't believe me.

"The others won't be as jealous if you show some vulnerability." I pointed out. "Even if it isn't real."

"You think I have to pretend to be vulnerable?" She asked me disbelievingly.

"Yes, I do." I said as I took the ice pack out of her hand, and held it her head myself. "You're going to want to march into breakfast tomorrow and show your attackers they had no effect on you. But you should let that bruise on your cheek show, and keep your head down."

"I don't think I can do that." She said, her voice hollow.

"You have to."

"I don't think you get it. They touched me." Her cheeks burned in humiliation as her words sank in, the disgust in her voice mirroring the sick feeling in my stomach.

"Touched you." I could feel the rage that I felt earlier rising inside of me again. Dauntless had always been a dangerous faction, but using sexual assault as a means of intimidation...

"Not... in the way you're thinking," she stuttered, "but... almost." She couldn't even look at me as she said it, only looking back to me when the silence had gone moved from seconds to minutes. "What?"

"I don't want to say this, but I feel like I have to. It's is more important for you to be safe than right, for the time being. Understand?"

She nodded slowly, knowing I was right, but hating it all the same.

"But please, when you see an opportunity," I pressed my hand firmly against her face, forcing her to meet my eyes, "ruin them."

She laughed shakily. "You're a little scary, Four."

"Do me a favor, and don't call me that anymore."

"What should I call you then?"

"Nothing. Yet."

 


	5. Chapter 5

I knew I should get up, that the best thing for pain radiating out from my shoulders and hips was taking a hot shower, but I couldn't seem to peel myself off the floor. I laid flat on my back, head pillowed up on my arm and watched Tris sleep, letting my thoughts drift.

_What should I call you, then?_

I wanted to hear her whisper my name, wanted to memorize the way it sounded wrapped in affection and happiness, cloaked in a smile you heard rather than saw. I wanted to know what it sounded like when she infused those six letters with myriad emotions because you could convey so much with the lilt of a voice over consonants and vowels.

Tris stirred slightly, brushing hair out of her face as she slept above me. I didn't know whether I was annoyed or amused by the fact that she had slept on top of the blankets on my bed. It probably seemed too intimate an act to slink between my sheets to her Abnegation wired brain, but there was no reason we both had to be uncomfortable.

But she slept, and that was something because I doubt she would have if she didn't feel safe, here, with me. I closed my eyes, imagining both of us in that bed, my blue quilt shrouding us. I imagined peering over her narrow shoulders to look at the clock on the bedside table; imagined the way her hair would tickle my nose, the way her spine would curve to the shape of my chest with my arms holding her close.

The scene was peaceful, calm, the kind of thing people took for granted on a long enough timeline, and then I remembered that was the one thing we didn't have. There was a war coming. It might be days, weeks, even months before it did, but it was coming. We didn't have forever, we had today, and no guarantees of a tomorrow. The minutes of our lives could be ticking down second by second as we unknowingly wasted time.

I didn't know what to do about the Erudite, had no idea how to stop the machinations I saw spinning us towards disaster, but I could control this. I wouldn't watch her die because she refused to hide her divergence, but I wouldn't watch us lose something we never had because we were too timid to take it, like Zeke and Shauna.

I clicked the alarm off before it had a chance to blare in Tris' face and crept into the bathroom, careful not to wake her up. I stood under the shower until the water went cold, too distracted by trying to solve the problem of contriving a way to get her alone that wouldn't raise suspicion so I could take her into my fear landscape.

She was awake when I emerged from the bathroom, toweling the water out of my hair. Her face was tense when she finally met my gaze, like she'd been caught doing something naughty. As much as I wanted to believe it was because her gaze got hung up on skin I was inadvertently showing, it was probably just because I caught her peering into the mirror when I walked out.

"Hi." She said, her voice tight and nervous.

I reached out, brushing my fingers across the bruise that had blossomed across her cheek. "Not bad. How's your head?"

"Fine."

It was a lie, but I let it slide; I would have said the same thing if the tables were turned.

My hand drifted down to her side. I had no intention of doing it, but I'd rarely planned on touching her any of the times I had; it was just what happened when we were close. "And your side?"

"Only hurts when I breathe."

I couldn't help but smile at her sarcasm. The things that made her beautiful definitely weren't on display in Abnegation. "Not much you can do about that."

"Peter would probably throw a party if I stopped breathing."

"Well," I leaned closer, "I would only go if there was cake," I said conspiratorially.

She laughed, a light carefree sound, bitten off as she winced at the pain it caused. Her hand shot up, covering mine and pressing it firmly against her side to ease the ache.

The air shifted around us, became heavy and expectant, and filled with all the things I wanted to tell her that were keeping up apart. I could feel her heart pounding against the cage of her ribs, mimicking the way mine had taken off at a sprint at the contact. I felt nervousness infect everything inside of me, felt it threaten to overflow and end with my lips on hers.

I couldn't kiss her, not yet, anyway. If I kissed her and she rejected me when she found out who I was, I was sure it would kill me. I slid my hand carefully out from under hers, and nodded towards the door, ushering us back into reality.

* * *

 

Lemons and cream, and something spicy - ginger, maybe -, that was the scent Tris left on my pillow. It was faint, but it was there when I pressed my nose into the fabric. I wanted to know if that's what she tasted like too.

I didn't think the Abnegation were wrong about only touching someone unless you meant it; unless it meant something. And late at night, with her scent teasing me, all I wanted to do was touch Tris. I had never touched someone like that before, and with Tris it definitely would have meant something. I really doubted anyone would mock me as the sexually repressed Stiff virgin if they knew the thoughts she inspired in the hazy time between wakefulness and sleep.

By the time I finally closed my eyes I was lazy and euphoric and sated. The idea of taking Tris through my fear landscape was still about as appealing as having a tooth pulled sans anesthesia, but the rush of endorphins from the self-indulgent behavior Marcus probably would have tried to beat out of me made me more optimistic than I probably would have otherwise been.

I wasn't asleep for long though when an insistent banging woke me though. I stumbled my way to the door, still half asleep, to find Eric on the other side. "You lost another transfer. Al commited suicide; threw himself into the Chasm." He said, his voice bored. He looked at me for a moment longer and then walked away without another word.

Maybe if Al hadn't tried to kill Tris I would have felt sad about his death, would have felt something other than a vague sort of annoyance that his memorial service would get in the way of me taking her through my fear landscape. Even if it was only delayed a day, I wasn't sure we had that kind of time to spare.

* * *

 

Tris didn't go to Will and Christina - her friends - for comfort. She didn't go to Uriah who was becoming something of a big brother to her. She shunned everyone... except me. With me she let herself be vulnerable; wrapped her arms around me even though there was the possibility I'd push her away for all she knew; admitted how upset she was about Al's death even though I'd snapped at her not five minutes before.

I could hear the drunken cheers of the crowd honoring Al in the Pit, but it seemed so far away; a different world from the one Tris and I inhabited in this hallway, half hidden in the shadows. I pulled her closer, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other smoothing over her hair and down to her shoulders.

I wasn't sure if I was holding her too tightly, or not tightly enough; if I should rest my hands against her or grip her. But after a while I stopped worrying and realized how good it felt, how naturally we fit together. I had never been touched like this before. 'Touch' had always been synonymous with 'pain'; whether the ache of fists meeting flesh, or the sting of a tattoo needle, it all hurt.

I tried to finds words, to name the way it made me feel to have Tris pressed against me. Every word my brain presented me with seemed pathetically inadequate, too small to contain what I was feeling. All I knew was that I would die for this; I would kill for it. And it terrified me, how intense it was despite barely knowing Tris by any standard of measurement. It terrified me because it could be taken away; by force or by choice it didn't really matter, I would do anything to keep it.

I didn't care what I had to do to make it happen, Tris was going through my fear landscape, tonight. Life and all it's tragedies and trials were indifferent to my plans, and for tonight I could be indifferent too because I wasn't going to let the unsaid things pile up between us like I had something to hide, like I was lying to her. She cared about me - she wouldn't be here if she didn't -, and she needed to know; she deserved to know.

* * *

 

Spending years mastering the art of ignoring fear served me well. The only thing I felt as I walked through the Pit was nervous excitement, a sort of thrumming your felt when you were luring your prey into a trap.

_Come on, Tris, show some of the Erudite curiosity. Follow me._

I chanced a glance behind me as I mounted the stairs towards the Spire, and sure enough I saw her wave goodbye to Will and Christina and take off after me. She was remarkably stealthy when she wanted to be; if I hadn't known she was there I never would have heard her following me.

"Since you're here, you might as well go in with me." I said once I reached the door to the fear landscape room, never looking over my shoulder to where she was behind me.

"Into your fear landscape?"

"Yes."

"I can do that?"

"The serum connects you to the program, but the program determines whose landscape you go through. And right now it's set to put us through mine."

"You would let me see that?" I heard her footsteps, quick and light, cross the floor and stop flush with my shoulder.

I turned towards her. "Why else do you think I'm going in? There are some things I want to show you." I couldn't meet her eyes - afraid of what I might see there -, but she trusted me enough to let me inject her.

"I've never done this before." She said nervously as I handed her the syringe to inject me like I'd done to her.

"Right here," I said, tapping the vein in my neck and keeping my eyes on her to distract me from the pinch and sting of the needle.

She didn't hesitate to take my hand, and even though the usual sickening fear of what I was about to face was descending on me, her hand in mine was like an anchor, reminding me that she was the only real thing here.

The air in the fear landscape always felt like the air in a sick room to me - full of dread -, but I could never decide if it actually was that way, or if I was just imagining it because of the things I faced in this room. "See if you can figure out why they call me Four." I said as the door clicked shut behind us.

"What's your real name?" She asked as she pressed against me.

"See if you can figure that out too."

Too soon we were on top of the Hancock building, the wind battering up. I slipped an arm around her shoulders, desperately trying to ground myself with her.

"We have to jump off, right?"

I couldn't speak through the fear and spin and of vertigo, so I nodded instead.

"On three, okay?"

Yeah, sure, great. On three. So easy. I nodded again.

"One... Two..."

_No. no, no, no, no, no..._

"Three!"

She pulled me along as she broke into a sprint, and after I stumbled into the first step I kept my eyes locked on her and just followed. This wasn't about jumping off a building, it was about following Tris, and that I could do. My brain still screamed in protest, but then I was falling after her, and a part of me wouldn't have it any other way.

Just before we hit the ground the scene dissolved, and we were both on our hands and knees, perfectly safe. Tris was grinning next to me, and I shot her a filthy look as I tried to breath, but she was too exhilarated to notice it.

She wrapped her small hands around me and pulled me up. "What's next?"

I tried to tell her it was the closet, but all I got out was 'it's' before the walls slammed into being around us, knocking her into me. Her head hitting my collarbone smarted, but it was nothing compared to what it felt like to have the walls close around us.

"Confinement." I grit out. Not real, not real, not real, I chanted in my head trying to ease the panic that was flooding my chest with bitter acid.

"Hey. It's okay. Here-" she guided my arms around her, and clutched at her, trying cling to her sense of calm. "This is the first time I'm happy I'm so small." She laughed.

"Mmmhmm." I tried to focus on the way she felt against me, but all I could think about was how even if it wasn't real it felt real. It smelled stale and moist just like our upstairs closet did; it was just as dark as our upstairs closet was.

"We can't break out of here. It's easier to face the fear head on, right? So what you need to do is make the space smaller. Make it worse so it gets better. Right?"

"Yes."

_No. What you need to do is break us out of here like you broke yourself out of that tank of water._

"Okay. We'll have to crouch, then. Ready?"

_Fine, whatever. Just make this stop._

She pulled me down, both of us landing in a jumble of limbs in the tiny space as the walls shrieked, closing in, smaller and smaller until she was forced to press her body flush with mine.

"Ah... this is worse. This is definitely-"

"Shh... arms around me."

All I was able to do was follow her directions, like I did when we jumped off the building a moment ago, so I obediently slipped my arms around her. I closed my eyes, trying to find the usual calm I felt at her touch, and came up empty.

"The simulation measures your fear response. So if you can calm your heartbeat down, it will move on to the next one, remember? So try to forget that we're here."

And for a moment I did, because I couldn't believe she just said that. "Yeah? That easy?" I snapped because it was better than unloading the string of obscenities I wanted to yell at her for treating this so cavalierly.

"You know, most boys would enjoy being trapped in close quarters with a girl." She quipped.

"Not claustrophobic people, Tris!"

"Okay, okay." I felt her place my hand on top of her heart, and even though I was nearly hyperventilating in fear the slight swell of her breast under my hand didn't go unnoticed. "Feel my heartbeat? Can you feel it?"

"Yes." I tried to force every other thought out, and focusing only on her heart thumping against my hand.

"Feel how steady it is?"

"It's fast."

"Yes, well, that has nothing to do with the box." She said dryly. "Every time you feel me breathe, you breathe. Focus on that."

"Okay."

She started taking steady, deep breathes, and mimicking her did bring me a little calm, but not enough to get us out of the closet.

"Why don't you tell me where this fear comes from. Maybe talking about it will help us... somehow."

"Um..."

_Well, this is what I wanted, right? I wanted her to know all my dirty little secrets; all the skeletons in my closet, so I might as well tell her._

"...Okay. This one is from my fantastic childhood. Childhood punishments. The tiny closet upstairs."

I felt her still in my arms, felt the tension radiate through and out of her at my words. "My mother kept our winter coats in our closet." She said lightly, but it was forced, and something about it made me want to cry.

"I don't," I started and gasped, forcing the words around the sob lodged in my throat, "I don't really want to talk about it anymore."

"Okay. Then... I can talk. Ask me something."

"Okay," a shaky laugh erupted from somewhere inside me, "why is your heart racing, Tris?" It was a shot in the dark, but I figured if anything could distract me, it was that.

"Well, I... I barely know you. I barely know you and I'm crammed up against you in a box, Four, what do you think?"

I nearly laughed again, but I was torn between relief and curiosity. "If we were in your fear landscape would I be in it?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Of course you're not. But that's not what I meant." And you know it, I added silently. This time I couldn't stop myself laughing again, and when I did the walls broke apart around us.

"Maybe you were cut out for Candor," I smiled, feeling smug in the knowledge that she liked me just as much as I liked her, "because you're a terrible liar."

"I think my aptitude test ruled that one out pretty well."

I shook my head. "The aptitude test tells you nothing."

She stared up at me, eyes narrowed as if she could see the lie behind my eyes. "What are you trying to tell me? Your test isn't the reason you ended up in Dauntless?"

"Not exactly, no. I..." I trailed off, looking over her shoulder and catching sight of my mother.

"You have to kill her?" Tris whispered next to me, and in some small part of my brain I was happy she didn't recognize the Evelyn. It wasn't surprising really, Tris would have been six or seven, just a child, when she died.

"Every single time." I said bitterly. I had hoped after Evelyn's miraculous resurrection that I wouldn't have to do this anymore, but the fear was unrelated to her death; it was about abandonment, and I hated what it said about me.

"She isn't real."

"She looks real. It feels real."

"If she was real she would have killed you already."

I didn't want to correct her; didn't want to have to explain myself, or this, or Evelyn.

"It's okay. I'll just... do it. This one's not so bad. Not as much panic involved."

I picked up the gun automatically. I cocked the hammer and put my finger on the trigger, lining up the shot robotically.

 _One, two, three..._ Her head exploded in a flash of red and grey, the bone chips tinkling as they struck the wall. I felt a cold that started somewhere in the vicinity of my heart flow outward through my veins, chilling me. The gun slipped from my fingers and impacted with the floor with a metallic thud.

"C'mon," Tris tugged my arm, "let's go. Keep moving."

I caught sight of a shadow moving at the other end of the room. "Here we go."

Tris inched in front of me, her hands going lax and falling away from where they had been gripping my arm. I heard her whisper 'Marcus' but her voice was otherwise lost to the static in my head.

"Here's the part where you figure out my name." I said with my last breath.

I watched as she looked from me to him and back again, her lips moving, forming words I couldn't hear because suddenly I was nine years old again, small and weak and powerless to stop the inevitable. My mind went blank, unable to form any thoughts, any counter-attacks or arguments that would stop this.

He brought his hands forward, "This is for your own good," he said, but all I saw was the belt he was unraveling. I heard his voice echoing around the room, and knew there was no escape.

I threw my arms up when he drew back to lash at me, my muscles bracing for the blow I knew was coming. When I heard rather than felt the snap of leather meeting flesh I peeked up over my arms and watched in wonder as Tris ripped the belt out of his hands, and whipped around, hitting him with it.

Marcus screamed and lunged at her, fingers clawed and ready to strangle her just like Peter had. And just like then I was suddenly furious that someone would hurt her, and I didn't think about it, I just reacted.

I shoved Tris behind me, ready to unleash on Marcus the same way I had on Drew. I wasn't going to stop this time though. This time I was going to I was going to kill someone. I was going to bash Marcus' head into the white tile until it turned to dust; until chunks of porcelain were indistinguishable from chunks of skull; until his brain oozed as freely as his blood would.

And like that, he was gone. The ancient fluorescent lights flickered in the dank space, and Tris pushed past me, looking at the spot Marcus had been.

The blind rage I had felt a second before was replaced by a mess of emotions that left me reeling. I tried to identify them before they overwhelmed me. Shock, awe, and gratitude were among their numbers, but I was certain there weren't words for the other things I was feeling; no one had felt them before, no one had named them.

"That's it? You only have four...  _Oh_." She looked over her shoulder at me. "That's why they call you-"

I reached out for her, drawing her in, and held her against me, kissing her cheek reverentially. I'd never seen anyone stand up to Marcus, ever. And now this short, skinny, little girl had fought back. I couldn't believe it. More than that, for the first time in my life she made me strong enough to fight back too, gave me something worth fighting for.

I felt her arms wrap around me. "Hey," she said soothingly, "we got through it."

I pulled away, looking into her pale blue eyes, and feeling buoyant in a way I never had before. "You got me through it."

"Well," she fidgeted nervously, "it's easy to be brave when they're not your fears."

She let her hands drop, and I felt the same cold I felt at having to kill my mother fill me again. "Come on," I grabbed her hand, "I have something else to show you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, I know the woman in Tobias' fear landscape isn't supposed to be Evelyn, but when I read that scene the first time that's who I thought it was, and that idea was more interesting to me than having it just be his distaste of killing innocents being a fear. Honestly, it doesn't change any other cannon aspects for me or this fic, so if you don't like it, don't worry; it doesn't come up again.


	6. Chapter 6

As Tris and I walked through the Pit hand-in-hand I felt physically lighter. As if the days and weeks of trying not to fall for her - and then trying to hide that I had - were a Sisyphean task and only now that I'd finally been released from the futility of it could I appreciate the toll it took.

Then again maybe I'd been carrying this weight around far longer; maybe the lightening I felt was because for the first time I was sharing my secrets with someone else, and now Tris was bearing some of the burden. Maybe this was what it felt like to not be so alone, or to entrust someone with pieces of yourself for safe keeping.

There were still things though - big things - I hadn't told her, and even her acceptance of everything else wasn't enough to wash away a lifetime of having distrust beaten into me. I didn't want to be this way - I wanted her to know all my secrets -, but just the thought of telling her about my Divergence was enough to make panic take up residence in my chest.

So I did what I always did: I ignored my fear. Instead of dwelling on the burning tightness in my sternum I focused on the way Tris' hand felt in mine as I led her down the narrow path to the bottom of the Chasm because I wasn't ready for the night to be over. I wanted to keep touching her. I wanted to keep talking to her. I wanted her to see the things that made me happy as much as the things I feared.

"So... four fears?" She asked as we walked.

"Four fears then, four fears now." I said lightly. "They haven't changed, so I keep going in there, but... I still haven't made any progress."

"You can't be fearless, remember? Because you still care about things. About your life."

"I know." I just wished I didn't care about those things anymore because even though I had been free of Marcus for two years, I couldn't escape the fear, and it felt like failure.

"You were going to tell me about your aptitude test results." She reminded me.

"Ah... does it matter?" I stalled.

"Yes, I want to know." She said earnestly.

I smiled at her. "How demanding you are." I had no idea how she'd survived in Abnegation for so long; it must have been torturous for her to subvert her curiosity along with all the other things I loved about her.

"These are things I don't tell people, you know. Not even my friends." I said as we sat down side by side, precariously close to the churning white water at the bottom of the waterfall.

She didn't say anything, just laced her fingers together and waited.

"My results were as expected: Abnegation." Marcus might not have left visible scars, but he had definitely left them.

"Oh." Tris deflated, clearly let down. "But you chose Dauntless anyway?" She pressed on after a moment.

"Out of necessity." I pointed out.

"Why did you have to leave?"

I searched the air, hoping for an explanation that wouldn't come down to my cowardice.

"You had to get away from your dad." She said simply, and it made me want to kiss her because there was no judgement there; in her eyes it didn't make me weak. "Is that why you don't want to be a Dauntless leader? Because you might have to see him again?" She asked, curious again.

I shrugged. "That, and I've always felt that I don't quite belong among the Dauntless. Not the way they are now, anyway."

"But you're... incredible." She said breathlessly. "I mean, by Dauntless standards. Four fears is unheard of. How could you not belong here?"

I shrugged again. It never really mattered to me that I only had four fears; it certainly didn't make me any more or less Dauntless. "I have a theory that selflessness and bravery aren't all that different. All your life you've been training to forget yourself, so when you're in danger it becomes your first instinct. I could belong in Abnegation just as easily."

Tris sagged next to me, her expression stricken. "Yeah, well I left Abnegation because I wasn't selfless enough, no matter how hard I tried."

"That's not entirely true." I couldn't help smiling at her again. "That girl who let someone throw knives at her to spare a friend, who hit my dad with a belt to protect me - that selfless girl, that's not you?"

"You've been paying close attention, haven't you?" She breathed out.

"I like to observe people."

"Maybe you were cut out for Candor, Four, because you're a terrible liar."

I splayed my hand out next to hers on the rock and leaned in close. "Fine. I watched you because I like you. And don't call me 'Four', okay? It's nice to hear my name again."

I didn't pull back, enjoying too much the effect my proximity had on her. In the world of Abnegation grey I left, and Dauntless black I inhabited I decided that the red stain of Tris' blush was my favourite color.

"But you're older than I am...  _Tobias_."

I smiled at the way her lips worked around my name. "Yes, that whopping two year gap is really  _insurmountable_ , isn't it?" I teased.

"I'm not trying to be self-deprecating," she stuttered, "I just don't get it. I'm younger. I'm not pretty. I-"

I cut her off with a laugh and kissed her temple. I knew she was lying about not being afraid of me.

"Don't pretend." She huffed. "You know I'm not. I'm not ugly, but I am certainly not pretty."

"Fine. You're not pretty. So?" I kissed her cheek. She wasn't one of those girls who put herself down just to listen to other people bolster her. "I like the how you look. You're deadly smart. You're brave. And even though you found out about Marcus you aren't giving me that look. Like I'm a kicked puppy or something."

"Well," she scoffed, "you're not."

Her eyes drifted up to mine, clear and blue and awake as she held my gaze. She didn't see me as Four, or her instructor; she didn't see me as Marcus' wayward son, or the frightened child I still sometimes felt like when I faced him in my fear landscape. She saw me, saw Tobias, saw the person no one else see until now.

And it was that as much as anything else that made me fit my lips to hers. Just a soft, timid press at first, and then more insistent with her face cradled in my hands, and her arms around me as she kissed me back.

And it felt like I finally found where I belonged.

* * *

 

I kept my head down as I walked into the cafeteria for breakfast. I gave Tris a dead, impassive stare as she looked at me across the cafeteria, and avoided looking at her altogether as Lauren and I led the initiates up to the fear landscape.

It wasn't what I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was hold her hand and listen to her whisper my name like she had when she'd said goodbye the night before when we could finally stand to put a hairs breath of distance between our lips.

And I couldn't.

We were surrounded by people, and I was still her instructor, and even once she she finished initiation we'd have to hide this - whatever this was - for a while otherwise everyone would call her ranking the result of my favoritism. I didn't want vicious whispers tainting her future. Maybe it didn't matter; maybe the looming war would obliterate all of our futures, but I was just trying to protect her.

But I couldn't not look at her as Lauren injected her with the serum, and the simulation began. She looked good, confident, at first. And then she just fell apart. I watched in shock as the simulation kidnapping made her crack and crumble more than any other simulation had; more than killing her family; more than drowning and burning to death.

It was a full minute before I realized that Tris had lost all rational thought, that she had forgotten what she was experiencing was, in fact, not real. It was another minute after that before I could finally uproot my feet from where they were stuck in sick horror. I needed to pull her out of this, and there was only one way to do it.

"Stop." I snapped at Lauren as I pushed through the crowd to where Tris was on her hands and knees, tears cascading down her face as she gasped for air.

I wrenched her up to her feet, forcing her look at me. "What the hell was that, Stiff?" I practically screamed at her.

"I... I didn't-" she stuttered out, eyes still glazed in tears.

"Get yourself together! This is pathetic."

I knew immediately that my charade had gone too far. That I had wounded her in some profound way, and I desperately wanted to reel the words back in. But I was stuck. I couldn't back down, couldn't beg forgiveness the way I wanted to, with everyone watching.

I barely had time to register the angry flush coloring her skin before her hand impacted with my cheek, the sharp smack! of flesh-on-flesh hanging in the air between us.

I could feel the crowd behind us shrink back. I could feel them holding their breath as Tris and I faced of, our eyes burning holes into each other, dark into light.

If I was Eric I would have made Tris hang over the Chasm like Christina. If I was Marcus I would have beat her insolence out of her. I wasn't like them, but before I could drag her from the room so I could explain myself she ripped her arm out of my grip.

"Shut up." Her voice was low and steady and furious, and then she was gone.

When I turned to face the initiates, arms crossed over my chest and face a hard mask, they looked like they wanted to run. "Will," I barked out, "you're next."

~~xxxx~~

I took a deep breath, staring at the center of the target, letting my field of vision shrink until it was completely occupied by the red circle. The only thing that existed was that dot and the knives I threw at it, each one quivering as they stuck in the board.

_Inhale, aim. Exhale, throw._

I let the steady rhythm of it calm me down, let it push everything else out.

"You're a hard man to track down." Max said from behind me. I hadn't even heard him come through the door.

I sighed. I really didn't want to revisit this topic right now.

"I know you're not interested. It's a damn shame too; you have a lot of skills that would be useful."

"So what are you doing here?"

"I heard you got slapped by one of the initiates."

"Yeah. Who told you, Eric?"

He laughed. "No. No, everyone was talking about it at lunch."

He watched quietly as I threw the last knife in my hand, only speaking when he knew he had my full attention.

"Tell me about her."

I shrugged. "Not much to tell."

He laughed again, and it made me grit my teeth. "You know why I let you train the initiates? Because of your skills. You're highly observant. It would be put to better use working for me, but clearly that's not what you want." He said as an aside. "So, tell me about Tris."

"What do you want to know?"

"She was the first jumper?"

"Yes."

He nodded to himself. "I remember her; small girl from Abnegation, right?"

"Yes."

"I pulled your progress reports earlier. You mentioned that she was the one who came up with the strategy to win Capture the Flag?"

"Yeah," I shook my head at the memory, "climbed up a Ferris wheel seeking higher ground, and once she spotted it she came up with the plan to get it. It worked."

"Brave. Smart. We need that." He looked at me pointedly. "How's she doing with the simulations?"

"Good. Until today anyway."

"Yeah, what happened with that?"

"Not sure." I scratched the back of my neck, stalling. "You know we don't record the simulation data when we introduce them to the fear landscape."

Thank God, I thought. I still didn't know exactly what had happened, but I could make an educated guess, and if I was right she might as well have 'Divergent' stamped onto her forehead in big red letters; a big red target.

Max nodded to himself, and I could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. "Guess we'll know if it was a fluke soon enough." He said more to himself than to me. "So... what are her weaknesses?"

"Anger. She's hot-headed, doesn't always think things through."

"Which was probably why you got slapped." He said with a scowl. He looked at me expectantly, as if he was waiting for me to come to her defense, and it made me wonder if Eric had shared his suspicions about Tris and I with him.

I let my face become expressionless, passive, as I waited for him to say something.

"The simulations are one thing, though; they're only a tool; how we react in the real world...", he trailed off. "Is she worth keeping around?"

I shrugged, keeping my body language and voice completely indifferent. "She's going to be highly ranked as long as she does well in the fear landscape."

"That's not what I asked."

"Depends, I guess on what you want to use her for."

Max smiled at me, all teeth, like a predator. " _That_  is why I need you. Very shrewd. Smart, too. Not that Eric isn't, but he takes pleasure in torturing people; it makes him shortsighted sometimes."

He pushed himself away from the wall he was leaning against and towards the door. "Like right now. Right now he's waiting outside the Spire to meet Tris. Apparently she went to visit her brother who transferred to Erudite. Not the smartest idea, especially after her little stunt this morning with you. But to answer your question, I was hoping that I could use her as our delegate to the Council. She's smart and brave and Dauntless, but she came from Abnegation; that might work in our favor."

What he was saying made sense, but I knew it was a lie. Abnegation wouldn't be in power much longer, and his voice was too detatched, too forced, for it to be the truth. It wasn't contemplative and curious like it had been when he was asking about her strategic skills and reactions under pressure.

"If you think she's worth keeping around you better go rescue her from Eric." He said over his shoulder as he walked out the door.

 


	7. Chapter 7

"Did I just hear you call me your boyfriend, Tris?" I tried to keep from smiling, from acting like a lovesick girl, and failed completely.

Because really in the grand scheme of things that is what was most important. Not that she called me cruel, or that I hurt her, or that she almost got thrown out of Dauntless, or that there's a war brewing. No. No, what my brain suddenly focused on was that somewhere in that mess Tris referred to me as her boyfriend.

"Not exactly. Why? Do you want me too?"

Yes. The word formed in my brain completely without volition, but it seemed stuck there, unable to push past my lips.

I slid my hands around her neck, thumbs pressed up under her jaw and tilted her face up so I could press my forehead to hers. Adrenaline spiked in my veins, kicking in my fight or flight instinct. There was a part of me that wanted to run from this, that wanted to run from the vulnerability of loving someone. She'd already used Four as a weapon once, and the sting of it was worse than when she'd slapped me.

But we were close enough that I could smell her, taste her, on the air I drew in as my breathing grew heavy. I could feel her pulse through the thin skin of her neck, hammering against my fingers the same way mine was hammering in my chest. We both wanted this. She opened the door; all I had to do was walk through it.

"Yes."

I had a moment, one second, of pure bliss. This silly, innocent girl was mine. This girl who was smart and brave and selfless and kind - all the things I wanted to be - was mine.

And then I remembered how Eric had tried to use her to hurt me already. If he knew that there was anything between us he would hurt her, kill her, to hurt me. I wanted everyone to know that she was mine, and I was hers, and that was impossible because of Eric. And I hated him for tainting this perfect moment.

"You think we convinced him you're just a silly girl?" I said, frowning. We had to hide this. We had to protect it. I had to protect Tris from my life bleeding all over hers.

"I hope so. Sometimes it helps to be small. I'm not sure I convinced the Erudite though."

The Erudite. War. There was still so much I hadn't told her. "There's something I need to tell you."

"What is it?"

I glanced around, wary. We'd been standing out here alone too long. Anyone could have seen us, could have seen how intimate we had become.

"Not now. Meet me back here at eleven thirty. Don't tell anyone where you're going."

I only waited long enough to see her nod in acknowledgement before I went back inside, ignoring my fear of heights as I crossed the glass floor and made my way down to the Pit.

I caught sight of Zeke just as he was unlocking the door to his apartment.

"Hey, I hear you got the shit smacked out of you today."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumbled, "laugh it up big boy. Can I talk to you for a minute?"

"Sure." He motioned me inside, careful to lock the door behind us.

"What's up? Need some dating advice? I gotta tell you, I think you'll do better with Shauna for that."

"No, nothing like that." I said, looking for a place to sit down in his cluttered apartment. "Jesus Christ, man, don't you ever clean up in here?" There were dirty clothes all over the small couch, the table in front of it littered with empty water and beer bottles.

"Don't be so Stiff, Four." He snickered, gathering up the clothes on the couch and throwing them on the bed. "Want a beer?"

"No, I'm good."

"Really?" He asked incredulously. "I would have thought you'd need a beer. Maybe a shoulder to cry on."

I picked up one of the empty water bottles and threw it at him. Hard.

"Ouch! Jeez, what did you want to talk about?"

"Nothing, really. I just wanted to tell you that I'll keep an eye on Erudite tonight."

"Oh?"

"I'm... uh... taking Tris with me tonight, show her what's going on." I tried to keep my voice even, to not show the nervousness constricting my lungs or making my stomach knot.

Zeke was quiet for a long time, eyes studying my face with a scrutiny I'd rarely seen.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Clearly, it's not 'nothing'." I said coldly.

He sighed heavily. "I hate to... I mean is it a good idea... are you sure we can trust her?" He finally spluttered.

"Yes."

He fidgeted uncomfortably before finally look up. He looked ashamed. "I shouldn't have asked. You don't trust anyone, so if you think it's a good idea, it's a good idea."

I shook my head, regretting already the harshness of my tone. "Don't worry about it. Things are changing. We need to be careful."

A smile slowly spread across his face. "So, you're taking Tris tonight? Guess things can't be all bad."

"Yeah," I smiled back, "yeah, it's good."

He laughed, pushing himself up and walking over to the fridge. "Maybe I should just let Shauna smack me."

"Or you could do something novel like declare your undying love for her. Or maybe just ask her out on a date."

He flicked a bottlecap at me, which I easily deflected with my hand.

~~xxxx~~

I bounced on the balls of my feet, trying to dislodge the nervous energy I was feeling as I waited for Tris. When she finally arrived I didn't say anything, just reached out, offering her my hand.

And she took it, implicitly trusting me to lead her into the unknown. As we ran together towards the train speeding towards us I was seized by the mad desire to spend my free time reading the dictionary. I wanted to learn a whole new vocabulary, I needed to. I needed to know the names of all the things Tris made me feel.

Her hand was still in mine as I lifted her into the train after me.

"What is it you need to tell me?" She shouted over the cry of the wind.

"Not yet."

Since we were free of people and cameras watching and listening for once I didn't hesitate to pull her down to the floor with me. I cradled her face in my hands and kissed her, losing myself in the push-pull of her lips against mine.

I couldn't help marveling at the way we fit together, at how natural it was to slot my lips against hers. I'd never kissed a girl before, and I doubted she'd kissed a boy, but it felt... right. I wondered if it was innate, this instinct of how to touch someone. I kissed across her jaw, down her neck, enjoying the freedom we had here. I heard her sigh - a simple sound laced in want - and it made lust thrum through me.

The train jostled around as it slowed, and I felt regret in the pit of my stomach, which was only increased when I felt her hand grab my hip. We'd have to stop kissing soon, though for a split second it sounded like the best idea in the world to just ride the train around the city endlessly so I wouldn't have to give up the feel of Tris' lips on mine.

Then she surprised me. I knew she could be bold and brave, but I didn't expect it when she swung her legs over me, bookending my hips with her knees. I didn't expect it, but I did like having her perched in my lap, birdlike and delicate in appearance only.

I ran my hand up her back, feeling her muscles bunching and stretching before I traced a trail down her spine, fingers feeling each bump and hollow as she shivered under my touch. I reached up, tugging at the zipper of her jacket until her birds were exposed to me, and I could brush my fingers across them.

"Birds." I smiled, recognizing Tori's work. "Are they crows? I keep forgetting to ask."

"Ravens. One for each member of my family. Do you like them?"

I didn't say anything because all I wanted to say was will you get one for me one day? but it was too soon for that. Instead I kissed each bird softly. When I pulled away her eyes were closed, not in fear, but contentment. I liked that I could have that effect on her. That my touch could make her feel all the things hers made me feel.

"I hate to say this, but we have to get up now."

The same regret I felt was reflected on Tris' face, but she nodded all the same, pushing herself to her feet and letting me tug her towards the open train door. The city was a study in shades of black; the dark of the night and the deeper black of the buildings hulking up from the ground like giants. All except for one bright spot far in the distance: Erudite headquarters.

"Apparently the city ordinances don't mean anything to them because their lights will be on all night." I commented.

"No one else has noticed?"

"I'm sure they have, but they haven't done anything to stop it. It may be because they don't want to cause a problem over something so small. But it made me wonder what the Erudite are doing that requires a nightlight."

I leaned against the wall, shifting my attention from the cityscape, back to Tris. "Two things you should know about me: the first is that I'm deeply suspicious of people in general. It's in my nature to expect the worst of them."

_Thank you, Marcus._

"And the second is that I'm unexpectedly good with computers."

That was also because of Marcus, but I refused to give him credit for anything good. Computers were the one thing it was acceptable to be intellectually curious about in the Eaton household, though I always suspected if I hadn't had a natural talent for it, he would have beat one into me.

"A few weeks ago, before training started, I was at work and I found a way into the Dauntless secure files. Apparently we are not as skilled as the Erudite at security, and what I discovered was what looked like war plans. Thinly veiled commands, supply lists, maps. Things like that. And those files were sent by the Erudite."

"War?" Tris' brow furrowed in concentration, the wheels of her Divergent brain already spinning.

I watched patiently, waiting for her thoughts to lead her to the same conclusion I reached weeks ago.

"War on Abnegation?" There was no shock, no disbelief in her voice, and for that I was grateful. Maybe like me she had been raised to expect the worst of people, or at least of the Erudite.

Or maybe she just trusted me. I laced my fingers through hers. "War on the faction that controls the government, yes. All those reports are supposed to stir up dissension against Abnegation. Evidently the Erudite now want to speed up the process. I have no idea what to do about it... or what could even be done."

"But why would the Erudite team up with Dauntless." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I saw her face go slack with horror. "They're going to use us..." She said, her voice sounding haunted already.

She looked back out the door, watching the speck of light in the distance, the clouds overhead reflecting forebodingly. "I wonder how they're going to get us to fight."

"I don't know."

The train rounded another curve, blocking our view, and she sank down to the floor heavily, pulling me with her, our arms and legs tangling around each other as she rested her head on my shoulder. It was just like I'd imagined coming home after the game of Capture The Flag, minus the happy atmosphere.

I had lied before when I said I didn't know what to do about it. I had one idea, but I hadn't acted upon it. I could send the information I found to Marcus, but the idea was fraught with danger. If the information ended up in his hands I'd be the first person the Dauntless came to. Even if I wasn't his son, I was former Abnegation, and I worked in the Control Room; that was enough.

And Marcus had never believed a word that had come out of my mouth before, so why should he believe me now? The story sounded insane, and anyone could have fabricated the 'evidence' given enough technical skill. Knowing Marcus he'd think it was a plot to discredit him, to make him look like a fool in front of the council and the entire city. I wasn't going to die for him.

Evelyn was another option, but the factionless were in no position to do anything. They were a horde of disorganized, defenseless, half-starved refugees, and even if they could fight they had no weapons.

I rested my head on top of Tris', and even though my mind should have been spinning with plans, looking for ways to stop the coming war, or at least warn the Abnegation, I did something selfish. I let myself forget about everything else, everything that wasn't me and Tris and the little space we occupied inside this dirty, noisy train car.

And I felt calm.

I didn't want this to end, didn't want to give her up, because I'd finally found the part of me that was missing just in time to lose it in the fog of war.

I cupped a hand around her cheek, letting the warmth in it banish the cold from my fingers. Maybe there was nothing we could do. Maybe the best option was to run away. Maybe I'd been meant to join the factionless, but only with her by my side. Maybe it was the only way to stay alive and protect this.

Even if I could ask her to make that sacrifice for me, I knew she never would. She was too selfless for it, and if I thought about it, so was I. I had spent years wishing Marcus dead, and I still did. But the senseless slaughter of an entire faction was not how I wanted it to happen. Most of those people were good people, innocent people, who didn't deserve to die. I couldn't stand by and watch it happen anymore than Tris could.

I closed my eyes and pulled her closer. Whatever happened in the future she was still mine and I was hers, and at least for tonight we had that.


	8. Chapter 8

I saw Tris pass through the door next to me in my peripheral vision; neither of us acknowledged the other.

"Hey, Tris!" Uriah called from across the room, "you can sit on my lap if you want." I turned just in time to see him slap his leg invitingly and shoot Tris his most persuasive smile.

I never knew what jealousy was before I met Tris, and I found that I really didn't like it. But recognizing the emotion wasn't enough to stop it, and I wondered - again - if maybe I'm wasn't the only one with a thing for her.

But I didn't hate it because it moves me to action, I hated it because it doesn't. I didn't want to be the one who wiped that smug smile of Uriah's face, I wanted Tris to be the one who did it. I wanted her to prove - even in that small instance - that I was her choice, as if every small instance where she interacted with other guys was some sort of fucked up loyalty test.

And as much as I hated myself for it, I still waited with nervous expectation to see what she would do.

"Tempting," she called back. "It's fine. I like to stand."

I felt like punching myself in the face for the sigh of relief that slipped past my lips.

I turned my attention back to the screens, watching as Marlene and Uriah completed their fear landscapes, and then the transfers did the same. I chuckled to myself as Christina started flailing her arms around wildly at one point; apparently the moths had made their appearance.

Tris looked like she was moving on auto-pilot when it was her turn. As soon as she was through the door I kept my eyes on the screen, as if by watching her I could will her to get through her landscape quickly. I knew she could do it, but I worried that her failure yesterday had hurt her self-confidence. I fleetingly wished I could have stolen a moment with her to tell her that instead of just planning kidnapping her as soon as this was all over.

It was strange not being able to see Tris' hallucination, only her reactions. I recognized the first two fears - the crows and the tank of water -, but not the third. It was easy enough to know when Peter showed up, I could hear her shouting about rain.

I didn't recognize anything about her fifth fear, though. She held her hands before her like she was holding a gun, but it didn't seem to be enough. When she screamed my nails dug painful crescents into my palms I was fisting my hands so tightly. I didn't breath until she calmed down enough to force the program to move on.

She stood up, dusting herself off before looking up at something I couldn't see. I watched as her face puckered in confusion and she looked over her shoulder and back to whatever was in front of her. But nothing made sense to me. She was unnerved by whatever was happening, but it wasn't a blind panic. She had long moments of standing still, looking outwardly relaxed, but her pulse spiked.

Finally she put her hands up as if she was pushing on something, said something I didn't catch that the leaders must have found hysterical, and started laughing. I ran through everything she'd ever experienced in the simulation training, trying to find a hallucination that fit and came up empty.

Before I could dwell on it too much I saw her go rigid and her face contort in pain. I knew immediately that she was confronted with a gun, her family, and the directive to shoot them. I wondered what Max and Eric would make of her refusal to do it. I wondered if I would ever stand next to them.

It was a tense minute before the lights came up in the simulation room. Shock and relief cascaded over me; she had seven fears. And I was suddenly grateful for Uriah. Having two Divergents throwing the curve protected her.

She was shaking, but pulled herself up from the floor when the leaders went in to congratulate her. She didn't look like she was taking much of it in, but as soon as Eric pulled out a syringe and explained about the new tracking serum she was alert. And wary. I was too, but there was nothing either of us could do; we certainly couldn't refuse to be injected.

I let Max and other others file out ahead of me, purposefully lingering so I could catch Tris' attention. "I heard a rumor you only had seven fears," I smiled at her. "Practically unheard of."

"You... you weren't watching the simulation?" She stuttered, rubbing distractedly at the injection site.

"Only on the screens. The Dauntless leaders are the only ones who see the whole thing. They seemed impressed."

"Well, seven fears isn't as impressive as four, but it will suffice." She said dryly, falling into step next to me.

"I would be surprised if you weren't ranked first."

The crowd was thinning as we walked, but there were still people there who cheered when they saw Tris, who slapped her on the back in congratulations. I could tell she hated it. She seemed to be trying to hide next to me, never drawing attention to herself.

She looked up at me nervously when we reached the floor of the Pit, lip trapped between her teeth. "I have a question. How much did they tell you about my fear landscape?"

"Nothing, really. Why?"

"No reason." She mumbled, kicking a pebble into the Chasm.

If she was trying to nonchalance she failed spectacularly, but badgering her about it in public isn't an option. "Do you have to go back to the dormitory? Because if you want some peace and quiet, you can stay with me before the banquet."

I had hoped she'd smile and say yes. She didn't. She didn't say anything. "What is it?" I finally prompted her.

She shook her head like she was trying to shake loose her thoughts. "Let's go."

The walk to my apartment was a quiet one, but that wasn't unusual or unexpected. Usually the atmosphere in the dormitories is subdued. After weeks of stress and worry everyone seemed to slip into a sort of exhausted fugue state.

At least that's what I told myself since it was better than the alternative: something happened, something big, and she hadn't told me.

"Want some water?" I offered once I closed the door behind us.

"No thanks." She stood awkwardly by the door. It wasn't her first time in my apartment, but the last time hardly counted. Since she was knocked out at the time she hadn't exactly come of her own free will.

"You okay?" I reached out, brushing my fingers across her cheek and into her hair. She nodded in a vague sort of way, and that was all the permission I needed to fit my lips to hers.

And for a moment, whatever was troubling her slipped away. We were just Tris and Tobias; a boy and a girl; two people who liked each other.

I pushed the jacket off her shoulders, and in the rushing sound of fabric falling to the floor I felt her stiffen and pull away. "What? What's wrong?"

She seemed to wilt on the spot, sinking into herself and hiding whatever was in her eyes behind her hands. She shook her head, as if she was trying to fight off tears.

"Don't tell me it's nothing." I grabbed her arm, trying to pull her hand away from her face. "Hey. Look at me."

When she finally looked at me there was undisguised pain in her eyes. "Sometimes I wonder," She said quietly, "what's in it for you. This... whatever it is."

"What's in it for me," I parroted back at her, my mind spinning until I finally figured out exactly what she was saying. "You're an idiot, Tris."

"I am  _not_  an idiot." She snapped, suddenly angry. "Which is why I know that it's a little weird that, of all the girls you could have chosen, you chose me. So if you're just looking for... um, you know... that..."

"What? Sex? You know, if that was all I wanted, you probably wouldn't be the first person I would go to." I said honestly, but unthinkingly; I had rarely needed to take other people's feelings into consideration since I'd transfered. I knew immediately I'd gone too far, that my honesty read as cruelty.

I expected her to descend into hysterics, maybe slap me or call me Four again. It would have been better than what happened. She conceded defeat. "I'm going to leave now," she whispered, and turned for the door.

"No, Tris," I grabbed her wrist, desperate to make things right. She pushed me away, more forcefully than I would have thought possible, so I grabbed her other wrist to hold her in place. "I'm sorry I said that. What I meant was that you aren't like that. Which I knew when I met you."

"You were an obstacle in my fear landscape," she said shakily. "Did you know that?"

I let go of her immediately. "What?" My head swam with sickening images. Me walking out of the shadows with a belt like Marcus and telling her what I was doing was for her own good. Me groping her like Peter had as she dangled over the Chasm. "You're afraid of me?"

Everything that had happened between us in the last few weeks flipped, changed focus, because somewhere along the line I'd done something that turned me into her personal monster. I backed away from her, trying to put a comforting distance between us even as it felt like a vise was tightening around my chest, cutting off my air.

"Not you," she said hastily, "being with you... with anyone. I've never been involved with someone before, and... you're older, and I don't know what your expectations are, and..."

I took a deep breath. This I could deal with. "Tris, I don't know what delusion you're operating under, but this is all new to me, too."

"Delusion?" She breathed out, and I could see the wheels turning behind her eyes." You mean you haven't...?" She raised her eyebrows questioningly. "Oh, Oh. I just assumed..." She trailed off, finally getting it.

And every taunt I'd taken over the last two years about being a sexually repressed Stiff replayed in my head, in Tris voice. I wouldn't have minded if the war had broken out in that second because it would have saved me the humiliation I felt at this particular revelation.

"Well, you assumed wrong." I muttered, not daring to meet her eyes. "You can tell me anything, you know." Once I was sure my cheeks were their normal color I stepped forward, framing her face in my hands. "I am kinder than I seemed in training, I promise."

I kissed her forehead, the tip of her nose, and then gently on the lips. I could still feel how tense she was though, her guard still up. I slid my hands down to her shoulders, and felt the puffed up patch of the bandage.

I pulled away. "Are you hurt?"

"No. It's another tattoo. It's healed, I just... wanted to keep it covered up."

"Can I see?" I asked, needing some sign that everything was okay between us.

She nodded silently, pulling down her sleeve and exposing her shoulder. I peeled the bandage back, revealing the Abnegation symbol on her shoulder. And just like always I didn't have the words to describe the way Tris made me feel. I laughed, because if I didn't I might have cried. "I have the same one. On my back."

"Really?" She asked eagerly. "Can I see it?"

I pressed the bandage back in place and covered her up again. "Are you asking me to undress, Tris?" I teased.

She laughed nervously. "Only... partially."

I felt the smile slip from my face. I wanted to show her, I wanted her to know me, but this was dangerous. She had no idea what she was asking me to do. This wasn't just me showing off the ink that decorated my skin. It was a statement about who I was; a bold one; a divisive one. But I couldn't hide it from Tris forever. I couldn't pretend to be something I wasn't so she'd love me.

I stared into her eyes the same way I had that day in the training room, throwing knives at her, not because I needed it, but because it made doing what I had to do easier. Before I could think about it anymore I pulled my shirt off in one swift motion, and stood bare before her.

"What is it?" She frowned.

"I don't invite many people to look at me. Any people, actually."

"I can't imagine why," she said softly, wonderingly. "I mean, look at you."

She walked around me slowly. I couldn't see her face to read her expression, but I didn't need to. "I think we've made a mistake. We've all started to put down the virtues of the other factions in the process of bolstering our own. I don't want to do that. I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest. I continually struggle with kindness." Clearly.

"No, one's perfect," Tris whispered from behind me. "It doesn't work that way. One bad thing goes away, and another bad thing replaces it."

She brushed her fingers over the symbol of Abnegation, "we have to warn them, you know. Soon."

"I know. We will."

I turned to face her, but the curiosity burning in them was replaced with apprehension once again. "Is this scaring you, Tris?"

"No." She croaked, and then coughed. "Not really. I'm only... afraid of what I want."

"What do you want? Me?"

 _Please say yes_ , it sounded like a plea and prayer wrapped up in one even inside my head.

She nodded, slowly, and so did I, but there was still a distance between us. I wanted to close it. I reached out, taking her hands in mine, and placing them flush against my abdomen. Her hands were small, easily engulfed in mine, but her touch was powerful. I kept my eyes lowered, watching as our stacked hands slid up my chest, over my heart, and finally against my neck.

"Someday, if you still want me, we can..." I stalled, cleared my throat and hoped to come up with something that didn't make me sound like a total letch. "We can..."

But before I could finish she looped her arms around me and nuzzled against my chest. "Are you afraid of me too, Tobias?" I knew she could feel my heart thundering against my ribs.

"Terrified."

She planted a kiss in the hollow of my throat. "Maybe you won't be in my fear landscape anymore." I felt her lips form every word against me, felt her breath warm and humid condensing on my skin.

I leaned down, kissing her again, but there was still something in the way. "Then everyone can call you Six."

"Four and Six." Her voice was contented, like she liked the idea of people thinking of us as a matched pair. I wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her closer, and this time with my lips on hers it feels like it should.

Eventually I felt her sag against me, the mental exhaustion finally catching up and making her body tired. "Do you want to lay down, take a nap?"

She pressed another kiss against my throat, and without saying anything took my hand in hers and led us both to the bed. I laid flat on my stomach next to her as she propped herself up on one hand while the other traced the shapes inked into my flesh.

It took a while for my heart to beat normally; the combination of being bare from the waist up, and Tris, and being touched. But my bravery was rewarded by the sensation of her fingers, gentle and curious and almost pleasurable enough to make me moan. I had never been touched like this before. All I had known before this was pain.

"Can I ask you something? You don't have to answer if you don't want to." She added.

"Okay."

"Why haven't you done this before... with someone else?"

"I never wanted it before you." I told her truthfully. She had no idea how much she'd changed me, how many walls were crumbling at her touch. "I don't think Abnegation's wrong, you know, about only touching someone when it means something. It never meant anything until now."

Her fingers never faltered as they traced the branches of Amity's tree. I wanted to feel this forever. I wanted to feel the warmth of contentment spreading out from her fingers radiating through me; I wanted to feel connected to her.

When she ran out of designs to trace she splayed her hand on my back, and laid down so that we were eye-to-eye, light into dark. I had seen her eyes hold so many things - fierceness, and defiance, and anger, and pain -, but never so much tenderness. I didn't know what she was looking for, but I know what I found. I loved her, even if it was too soon to say so, I knew it, unequivocally.

 


	9. Chapter 9

_Coward._

The word resounded in my head, wrapping around every other thought I had. I had six weeks to do something. Six weeks to warn someone - anyone - about what was happening. Six weeks to expose the Erudite and corrupt Dauntless, and I had done nothing.

True, I'd told Zeke and Shauna about what was going on. I'd told Tris too, but I had done nothing of substance. Nothing to try and stop the coming war no matter how inevitable it was. They were the actions of a coward. Even now, swaying as the train carried us closer and closer to the Abnegation section of the city, the only plan I had was to run.

So far we had been able to mimic the actions of those around us, but there would come a point when we wouldn't. Even if we could march around with blank faces we couldn't execute people as emotionlessly as the drones that surrounded us. We would have to run before anyone noticed because if we didn't we would die.

I could rationalize it. Running would give Tris and I a chance to stay alive long enough to make a difference because there was nothing neither of us could do to stop the slaughter that was happening tonight. It was flawless and logical and completely pointless.

I knew,  _I knew_ , she wouldn't run. Not Tris. She was selfless and brave; stronger than any person I'd ever met. She would do anything to save her family, even sacrifice herself; her simulations proved that.

But I still had to try.

"Run." I pleaded with Tris once the train stopped.

"My family." She said simply, leaving no room for argument. She wasn't going to run anywhere except towards her family.

I looked down at this little wisp of a girl who held my fate in the palm of her hand. I stayed in Dauntless for her. I loved her. Logically I knew I could still run, save myself. Six weeks ago I would have without a second thought. Six weeks ago I was a different person. My fate was tied to hers now. If she was going to die, then so was I.

I kept her behind me as we hopped out of the train and walked the streets of Abnegation.

I felt sick as I watched Tori execute a middle-aged man with a bullet in the back of the head, her eyes as unseeing as the drones that Tris and I walked with. Tori, who with a smug smile had told me only a few hours earlier that she wasn't surprised I'd gone for Tris, that as soon as she met her she was reminded of me. We walked through the puddle of blood and brains, matching towards more death.

I wondered what atrocities our friends were perpetrating as we walked. I wondered if Shauna and Zeke were murdering innocent people. I wondered if Uriah had been smart enough to hide, to play along, to keep himself alive.

By the time we stopped in front of a row of nondescript Abnegation grey houses the streets were stained red, blood flowing into the cracks in the asphalt like water. I watched out of the corner of my eye as another grey-clad figure crumpled to the ground, the rapport of the bullet that exploded in his head ringing in my ears.

I could hear Tris breathing heavily behind me, and I wanted nothing more than to take her hand in mine again. The soldiers in front of us started peeling off, carrying out tasks on unspoken orders. Soon we would have to break rank or start killing people like the rest of them.

"This is insane," I heard Eric coo from behind me. Of course he wouldn't be under the simulation.

"They really can't see us? Or hear us?" A female voice I recognized as Max's girlfriend, Amanda, asked.

"Oh, they can see and hear all right. They just aren't processing what they see and hear in the same way," Eric replied, sounding gleeful. "They receive commands from our computers in the transmitters we injected them with and carry them out seamlessly."

He shifted around, standing next to me instead of Tris. "Now, this is a happy sight. The legendary Four. No one's going to remember that I came in second now, are they?"

I almost laughed at the bitter tone of his voice. Poor Eric, forever a slave to his own ego. He got everything he wanted, and it still wasn't enough for him. He knew, like everyone else knew, that given the choice Max would have been grooming me to take over for him one day instead of Eric.

"No one's going to ask me, 'what was it like to train with the guy who only has four fears?'" He pulled his gun from the holster and pressed it into the side of my head. "Think anyone would notice if he accidentally got shot?"

 _Don't do anything stupid, Tris_ , I screamed at her in my head, willing her to not get herself killed where we stood. I could feel the tension radiating off her.

"Go ahead, he's nothing now." Amanda replied, sounding suddenly bored by Eric's antics. I couldn't blame her.

"Too bad you didn't just take Max up on his offer, Four. Well, too bad for you, anyway." The click of the hammer was sharp in my ears, but before I could do anything I saw movement out of the corner of my eye.

"Get your gun away from his head." Tris' voice was cold, deadly, and completely fearless.

"You won't shoot me," he said disbelievingly, and for a second I pitied him.

"Interesting theory," she said evenly and then she shot him.

As Eric lay screaming on the pavement I shot Amanda and grabbed Tris' hand, pulling her along towards an alley, our only chance of escape. Shouts followed us, feet pounded after us, bullets whizzed by us. Halfway there I felt Tris' hand jerk out of my own, heard her strangled cry and her body hitting the ground, and for one heart-stopping minute I thought I had lost her.

I dropped to my knees next to her. Blood was pouring out of her shoulder, and her face was ashen, but she was alive. "Run!" She yelled with all the strength she had, but I wasn't going anywhere, not without her.

"No," I said calmly. This was my choice. She was my choice. I wasn't going anywhere without her. If that meant dying, so be it.

The fact that the Dauntless soldiers who surrounded us didn't put bullets through our brains the first chance they had gave me hope. They wanted us for something, and as long as they wanted us we were alive, we could fight. As long as we were alive we had the hope of survival. I didn't protest as Eric hopped up to us, demanding our weapons, just handed them over and lifted Tris to her feet, supporting her small frame as we walked into the Abnegation meeting hall.

Unsurprisingly, Jeanine was waiting for us, her eyes alight and intent in the same way a predators are as they play with their prey before killing it. And I refused to feed her curiosity. If she was going to make me play some stupid little game - the intellectual puzzle the Divergent presented her - while Tris dripped her strength onto the floor red and wet, I was going to let my anger, and all the things it brought with it, play too. I might have had to bite my tongue with Marcus, but I wasn't going to be a coward anymore. It might have been as useless as shouting in the wind, but I was done silently accepting a flawed system and corrupt leaders, no matter what faction they came from.

Jeanine was no different than Marcus, so steeped in the absolute belief that her values were the right ones that she was blinded to the truth that life didn't exist in black and white like that. Fierce triumph burned in my veins as Jeanine's cool exterior cracked while we spat barbs at each other. And the longer it went on the more convinced I was that we could get out of this alive. Jeanine would want to keep us alive, Divergent lab-rats to experiment on until she could control us just as easily as the non-divergent.

It would never get that far though. They would hold us here for a few hours at least, probably lock us in the broom closet or something. Most of the guards would be focused on controlling the Abnegation gathered here, and even if we were important to Jeanine, it was a question of manpower. They probably wouldn't spare more than two or three soldiers to move us from this dingy office to someplace they could hold us until the move to Erudite headquarters.

That was our window of opportunity; it was small, but it was there. It was fraught with complications - Tris could easily slip into unconsciousness from blood loss, and as much as I loved her, that didn't make me physically stronger. If I had to carry her and try to fight my way out of here we were doomed. And that was just my biggest concern; there were a dozen others buzzing in my brain as Jeanine rattled on about her latest and greatest serum.

And then the world promptly dropped out from under me, shattering my plans as easily as Tris had shattered the glass tank in her simulations.

"You will be the first test subject, Tobias. Beatrice, however...," she smiled cruelly at Tris. "You are too injured to be of much use to me, so your execution will occur at the conclusion of this meeting."

The idea that Jeanine would kill Tris never occurred to me. In my mind it was a foregone conclusion that Tris would be treated for her wounds and doted upon in a twisted way for her strong Divergence. If Jeanine wanted to solve the problem we presented her with, I assumed - erroneously - she'd pick the greatest challenge if only to cover all her bases.

I felt Tris shudder against me. Her eyes were wide and afraid, a pale watery blue in place of her normally piercing grey-blue, as if she was already fading into nothingness.

In place of the future I'd allowed my imagination to spin since she dropped into the net and into my life, I saw a new one. One without her. One where the only person I'd ever loved, was gone. One where I had only her ghost to live with in the pauses where I was in my own mind. It was cold and empty and terrifying.

"No." The bravado in my voice from earlier disappeared. My voice shook in fear and anger that she could so easily, so callously, take away the only good thing in my life. "I would rather die."

"I'm afraid you don't have much choice in the matter," Jeanine replied lightly, and it was that as much as anything else that finally made me snap.

I framed Tris' face with my hands, kissing her, trying to put every unsaid thing into the push-pull of my lips against hers, thankful that she found the strength to kiss me back as fiercely as I kissed her. It gave me strength because if she was going to die, then I was too. I just had to make myself too much of a liability, too much of a target to give them any option other than killing me.

It took every ounce of willpower I had to let go of Tris. But if it went on much longer they'd pull us apart, and I couldn't let that happen. I didn't know if Tris would be able to stand once I let her go, but I pushed the thought out and launched myself across the small office, fitting my hands around Jeanine's neck, and choking the life out of her, the same way she wanted to choke the life out of Tris.

From somewhere far away I heard Tris scream, felt the Dauntless guards try to pull me off of Jeanine. Even when they succeeded in pulling me away I fought until they pinned me to the floor. I was hoping for the oblivion of a bullet. I got the sting of a needle.

~~xxxx~~

Erudite's attack simulation was the most densely coded program I had ever seen. Lines and lines of code. My eyes scanned through them looking for key commands that would stop the Dauntless it was enslaving, even if I couldn't bring them back to their own minds. If they couldn't receive the commands, or the commands were corrupted they were as useless as puppets without strings.

I heard shouts and gunfire in the hallway and cursed under my breath. I needed time. I didn't relish the idea of killing someone when they weren't responsible for their own actions, but if it came down to ending one life to save hundreds, if not thousands of others, than I would.

My fingers flew over the keyboard desperately, but I wasn't quick enough.

"Four." The voice was feminine, and for some reason it surprised me. I didn't think they'd send a girl to try and stop me. She was small, like Tris, it made and something inside of me break. I couldn't save her. But this girl wasn't Tris; she's not brave, she's just under a simulation.

"Drop your weapon." She stood staring at me, mouth working to form words she couldn't give voice to. "Drop your weapon," I repeated. "Or I'll fire." She kept staring, and finally my frustration got the better of me. "Drop your weapon!" I screamed at her, desperate for her to comply.

I had a second of blind relief as I heard it clatter to the floor and then she attacked, running at me, grabbing my wrist to force my gun away from her. I felt the same dread fill me as when I had to shoot my mother in the fear landscape, and just like then I pulled the trigger. This time I missed.

The girl fought against me, and it reminded me of Tris' fight with Peter. She was so stubborn. He kept hitting her, taunting her, and even though she knew she was going to lose, that he might hurt her so badly she'd have to drop out of initiation, she kept fighting. Her pride hadn't allowed her to feign unconsciousness and save herself more pain.

To someone on the outside looking in that must be what this looked like, and it made me sick, but unlike Peter I wasn't doing it for my own perverse amusement. No, a voice in my head chided,you're doing it for her own good... Tobias. My father's words in Tris' voice. My fingers faltered in the girls hair, my grip loosening enough to allow her to kick me again.

As soon as she was free she dove for my gun, but when she flipped over on her back to aim at me her face was slick with tears. As I advanced on her I heard Tris pleading in my head, begging me not to kill her. Tris wouldn't have if the tables were turned, she would have found another solution, a divergent one, probably.

But I'm not Tris. I reached for the girl, intending to finish this once and for all, but instead of feeling warm, pliant flesh, I felt cold, hard metal as she pressed her gun into my palm. My mind screamed a warning. There was no way - no way - this girl would just surrender. Not a Dauntless, and not under the attack simulation. It had to be a trick.

I pressed the barrel to her forehead, finger hovering over the trigger as the voices in my head warred over what to do with her, whether to kill her or incapacitate her. And then I felt her hand press against my chest, resting squarely over my heart, and sending a jolt through me that sent my mind spinning with questions about why anyone in an attack simulation would do something so tender. And it was enough to jar something in my brain, to make an echo of a voice cut through the chaos in my head.

_I can control what you see and hear... So I created a new serum that will adjust your surroundings to manipulate your will._

A new type of simulation.

_Am I in a simulation?_

I thought back, trying to remember how I got here. I remembered, clearly, the violence on the streets of Abnegation. I remembered Tris being shot, and meeting with Jeanine. I remembered her telling me about the new serum she developed and how it turned friends into enemies. I remembered her ordering Tris' death, but everything after that was hazy and dream-like.

 _Tobias, it's me_. Tris' voice was wavering and uncertain, and even if it was all in my head it gutted me. I remembered that tone from my childhood, remembered my mother using it when she knew Marcus was going to bring out his belt.

I felt the girl wrap her arms around me and froze, instinctively stiffening at the touch of a stranger. But then she nuzzled her face against my chest just like Tris had in my apartment the night before.

_Oh God._

I let the gun drop to the floor as I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around her. She felt like Tris, cried out like Tris would have when I grabbed her wounded shoulder. I pushed her away, needing my brain to confirm what my body already knew. And I got it in a pair of blue-grey eyes rimmed in red and wrapped in tears.

 


End file.
